Princess and the peeve
AS Vera was floating about at defence headquarters in Pretoria she came across a woman sobbing inconsolably. On closer inspection it turned out it was none other than Princess Nonceba Lindiwe Sisulu. People in the corridors were whispering that she had just been moved from the glamorous Defence Ministry to the gritty Public Service ministry. So she would now no longer be able to wear those sexy military uniforms to state events. She would no longer be saluted by generals and admirals. She would also no longer be in a position to refuse to answer questions for "security reasons". No longer will she be able to scream at the DA's David Maynier.
Aaagh shame, poor thing.
Wardrobe malfunction
Adding to the princess' misery is that she will now have to hang around Zwelinzima Vavi, Sadtu's Thobile Ntola, Nehawu's Fikile Majola and those guys from Solidarity. And instead of slapping striking soldiers with court-martials, she will have to accept memoranda from angry workers. Vera can't wait to see which fashion label she'll be wearing when she addresses workers from the back of a truck.
Blunt Blade cuts losses
Vera's favourite bourgeois communist put on his boxing gloves and went to Durban recently to put workers in their place. After angering the workers by chastising them for demanding that he leave his cushy government job and lose his flashy car, he then tried to charm them. He did many Phansi! slogans and got the enthusiastic Phansi! responses from the workers. But being a cabinet minister he could not bring himself to say Phansi !nge e-tolls Phansi!, prompting workers to shout him down.
The bourgeois communist, who had never been booed by unionists before, ended up in hospital recovering from the emotional breakdown. But as soon as he heard that some ANC leaders planned to take on President Jacob "I know what I'm doing" Zuma at the NEC meeting, he got out of his pyjamas and ran off to defend his paymaster.
Know where your bread is buttered...
Cop is being caught up
THE new top cop, Mangwashi Phiyega, started her career on a high note this week by feeding the media with nice sound-bites. Quizzed about her lack of policing experience, she simply said: "You do not need to be a drunkard to own a bottle store." She may as well have continued to say you do not need to be a drug addict to push drugs. Nice start, but Vera thinks she will need a lot of work to catch up to Bheki Cele, the master of great quotes.
Vera would like to share a little observation. When Maria Ramos arrived at Transnet in 2004, she and Phiyega were immediately at each others' throats. Phiyega jumped ship and went to Absa. Then Ramos left Transnet to head up Absa. Phiyega was forced to jump ship again to flee her nemesis. Based on this pattern, Vera predicts that Ramos' next job is minister of police.
Vera's Question of the Week: Will the new top cop be patrolling the streets of Hillbrow on New Year's eve?
Source: The Sowetan
Showing posts with label Zwelinzima Vavi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Zwelinzima Vavi. Show all posts
Friday, June 15, 2012
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Cosatu: Secrecy Bill will create a 'police state'
Cosatu will be the first to challenge the Protection of State Information Bill in court because it risks turning South Africa into a security state again, general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi warned on Thursday. Vavi said that although the Bill was redrafted under pressure from the Congress of South African Trade Unions, the version passed by the National Assembly last year still raised the spectre of abuse of classification to conceal corruption.
He told MPs the scope of the draft legislation was too wide, the penalties it imposed disproportionate, and the potential impact on South Africa's democratic values devastating. "You have to be concerned that the scope of the Bill is extended way beyond what is necessary ... it takes a huge swipe at everything that moves," he told a third day of public hearings on the secrecy Bill by the National Council of Provinces.
Cosatu's biggest fear was the Bill might "inadvertently draw us closer to a threat of entrenching a security state". "Back to where we come from -- the police state. Everything marked confidential and everybody seeing something marked confidential suddenly fearing 15 to 25 year imprisonment." Reminding MPs that he represented two million union members -- and voters -- Vavi said the Bill was ripe for constitutional challenge on several grounds and Cosatu would not be deterred by the fact that it would find itself on the same side as opposition parties. He singled out clause 3 (2) (b), which allowed the minister of state security to confer the power to classify information on any other state entity, and clause 49, which bans the publication of anything deemed a state security matter, as unacceptable. "You cannot give the minister a blanket right. What we fear is that if you give such a blanket right you might end up with the lease agreements between the police and the various agencies being classified. That is very, very dangerous. Please don't pass a law you will regret in future," he said. Had the Bill been law, these provisions and those that would send journalists to jail for disclosing state secrets might have meant that two scandal-tainted ministers sacked last year -- Sicelo Shiceka and Gwen Mahlangu-Nkabinde -- would still be in their posts, Vavi said. "Just close your eyes and think if we would have seen the backs of two ministers last year. We would have not known that if it had not been for the excellent work of the media," he said, adding that the Bill was not the place to address concerns about media ownership and bias.
"The persecution of the media would only exacerbate the problems of inaccuracy and bias. In our view, it is necessary to enhance investigative reporting in the public interest. However as the Bill places extensive restrictions on the access and disclosure of classified information, it would necessarily severely curtail this objective."
Vavi went on to bemoan the Bill's assertion, contained in clause 1 (4), that it trumped the progressive Promotion of Access to Information Act. "What it means is that fundamental piece of transformation becomes secondary to security legislation. We think that is very dangerous." Furthermore, the draft law's provisions on whistleblowers -- many of them union members -- who disclosed classified information to reveal wrongdoing was plainly unconstitutional. Clause 43 offered exemption from prosecution only if the revelations pertained to the whistleblower's employer and, in addition, shifted the burden of proof from the state to the accused. "We have said if these types of clauses go through then we will be left with no choice but to approach the Constitutional Court," he said. "We will be the first to arrive there. Our lawyers are standing very ready to do so."
Veteran human rights lawyer George Bizos, appearing on behalf of the Legal Resources Centre (LRC), listed seven fundamental flaws in the Bill and concurred that it violated the Constitution. The LRC agreed with Vavi's criticism of the heavy onus the Bill sought to place on those accused of breaching it, saying it could see somebody "condemned to 25 years in jail for being stupid".
Bizos urged MPs to refer the Bill to the Constitutional Court, warning that if it were enacted in its current form "there will be a very long queue of applicants to take the president, the minister of justice to court". He then deviated from his text to deplore the government's planned assessment of the Constitutional Court and Supreme Court of Appeal and urged the government to follow former president Nelson Mandela's example in respecting the courts.
Vavi said he found succour in the fact that Mandela's former defence lawyer shared his views on the Bill. "It gives us comfort that you are in the same corner," he said.
Source: Mail & Guardian
He told MPs the scope of the draft legislation was too wide, the penalties it imposed disproportionate, and the potential impact on South Africa's democratic values devastating. "You have to be concerned that the scope of the Bill is extended way beyond what is necessary ... it takes a huge swipe at everything that moves," he told a third day of public hearings on the secrecy Bill by the National Council of Provinces.
Cosatu's biggest fear was the Bill might "inadvertently draw us closer to a threat of entrenching a security state". "Back to where we come from -- the police state. Everything marked confidential and everybody seeing something marked confidential suddenly fearing 15 to 25 year imprisonment." Reminding MPs that he represented two million union members -- and voters -- Vavi said the Bill was ripe for constitutional challenge on several grounds and Cosatu would not be deterred by the fact that it would find itself on the same side as opposition parties. He singled out clause 3 (2) (b), which allowed the minister of state security to confer the power to classify information on any other state entity, and clause 49, which bans the publication of anything deemed a state security matter, as unacceptable. "You cannot give the minister a blanket right. What we fear is that if you give such a blanket right you might end up with the lease agreements between the police and the various agencies being classified. That is very, very dangerous. Please don't pass a law you will regret in future," he said. Had the Bill been law, these provisions and those that would send journalists to jail for disclosing state secrets might have meant that two scandal-tainted ministers sacked last year -- Sicelo Shiceka and Gwen Mahlangu-Nkabinde -- would still be in their posts, Vavi said. "Just close your eyes and think if we would have seen the backs of two ministers last year. We would have not known that if it had not been for the excellent work of the media," he said, adding that the Bill was not the place to address concerns about media ownership and bias.
"The persecution of the media would only exacerbate the problems of inaccuracy and bias. In our view, it is necessary to enhance investigative reporting in the public interest. However as the Bill places extensive restrictions on the access and disclosure of classified information, it would necessarily severely curtail this objective."
Vavi went on to bemoan the Bill's assertion, contained in clause 1 (4), that it trumped the progressive Promotion of Access to Information Act. "What it means is that fundamental piece of transformation becomes secondary to security legislation. We think that is very dangerous." Furthermore, the draft law's provisions on whistleblowers -- many of them union members -- who disclosed classified information to reveal wrongdoing was plainly unconstitutional. Clause 43 offered exemption from prosecution only if the revelations pertained to the whistleblower's employer and, in addition, shifted the burden of proof from the state to the accused. "We have said if these types of clauses go through then we will be left with no choice but to approach the Constitutional Court," he said. "We will be the first to arrive there. Our lawyers are standing very ready to do so."
Veteran human rights lawyer George Bizos, appearing on behalf of the Legal Resources Centre (LRC), listed seven fundamental flaws in the Bill and concurred that it violated the Constitution. The LRC agreed with Vavi's criticism of the heavy onus the Bill sought to place on those accused of breaching it, saying it could see somebody "condemned to 25 years in jail for being stupid".
Bizos urged MPs to refer the Bill to the Constitutional Court, warning that if it were enacted in its current form "there will be a very long queue of applicants to take the president, the minister of justice to court". He then deviated from his text to deplore the government's planned assessment of the Constitutional Court and Supreme Court of Appeal and urged the government to follow former president Nelson Mandela's example in respecting the courts.
Vavi said he found succour in the fact that Mandela's former defence lawyer shared his views on the Bill. "It gives us comfort that you are in the same corner," he said.
Source: Mail & Guardian
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Trade Union Group, A.N.C. Ally, Holds Strikes in South Africa
Tens of thousands of South Africans marched in the streets of the nation’s major cities on Wednesday in a national strike called by Cosatu, the powerful group of trade unions, a crucial ally of the governing African National Congress that is growing increasingly critical of its policies. The stated reason for the strike was to protest new highway tolls and the practice of contracting out jobs through temporary-employment firms, at lower pay and with fewer benefits than permanent workers get, a practice known here as labor broking. But the strike tapped a deep undercurrent of dissatisfaction with the A.N.C., which has governed South Africa since white minority rule ended in 1994. “We voted for the A.N.C., but we can’t even send our children to school because of their corruption,” said Thabiso Bopape, 30, a contract worker for the postal system who earns much less than regular government employees doing the same work.
Mr. Bopape and thousands of others gathered in downtown Johannesburg on Wednesday, wearing the T-shirts of their unions and waving placards denouncing corruption and capitalism. Zwelinzima Vavi, the secretary general of Cosatu, said in a fiery speech that racial apartheid was increasingly being replaced by economic apartheid. He said there would be civil disobedience if the government went ahead with its plans to charge tolls on highways that were built with tax money. “We have fired our first warning shot,” Mr. Vavi told the cheering crowd. “There are still many bullets in our chamber.”
The marches come at an important moment for the A.N.C., which is celebrating its centennial this year. The party faces growing doubts from a public that has historically returned it to power with huge majorities. The party will hold its conference to choose a leader in December, and in June it will hold a policy conference to discuss ideas for how to tackle some of the country’s most bedeviling problems, like unemployment that reaches 40 percent among young people.
South Africa is often roiled by protest. Demonstrations, sometimes violent, happen almost daily in the townships where the poor struggle to live without basic services like electricity, water and toilets. But the outpouring on Wednesday came from working people, not the destitute, and their protests took place not in distant townships but in the heart of South Africa’s cities. The toll issue was a flashpoint for their anger. “We already paid once, why should we pay again?” said Busi Harishe, 34, a shop clerk who joined the protest. “Petrol prices are already high. Working people are suffering too much.”
Julius Malema, the contentious former leader of the A.N.C.’s youth league, also spoke to strikers on Wednesday. Mr. Malema was expelled from the party for breaking rules and espousing controversial positions contrary to party policy, like calling for mines to be nationalized. He also faces an investigation into his personal fortune, which has expanded along with his political influence.
Young marchers like Mr. Bopape said Mr. Malema, who is appealing his expulsion, should stay in the party. “He is the voice of the youth,” Mr. Bopape said. “No one else is speaking for us.”
Source: New York Times
Mr. Bopape and thousands of others gathered in downtown Johannesburg on Wednesday, wearing the T-shirts of their unions and waving placards denouncing corruption and capitalism. Zwelinzima Vavi, the secretary general of Cosatu, said in a fiery speech that racial apartheid was increasingly being replaced by economic apartheid. He said there would be civil disobedience if the government went ahead with its plans to charge tolls on highways that were built with tax money. “We have fired our first warning shot,” Mr. Vavi told the cheering crowd. “There are still many bullets in our chamber.”
The marches come at an important moment for the A.N.C., which is celebrating its centennial this year. The party faces growing doubts from a public that has historically returned it to power with huge majorities. The party will hold its conference to choose a leader in December, and in June it will hold a policy conference to discuss ideas for how to tackle some of the country’s most bedeviling problems, like unemployment that reaches 40 percent among young people.
South Africa is often roiled by protest. Demonstrations, sometimes violent, happen almost daily in the townships where the poor struggle to live without basic services like electricity, water and toilets. But the outpouring on Wednesday came from working people, not the destitute, and their protests took place not in distant townships but in the heart of South Africa’s cities. The toll issue was a flashpoint for their anger. “We already paid once, why should we pay again?” said Busi Harishe, 34, a shop clerk who joined the protest. “Petrol prices are already high. Working people are suffering too much.”
Julius Malema, the contentious former leader of the A.N.C.’s youth league, also spoke to strikers on Wednesday. Mr. Malema was expelled from the party for breaking rules and espousing controversial positions contrary to party policy, like calling for mines to be nationalized. He also faces an investigation into his personal fortune, which has expanded along with his political influence.
Young marchers like Mr. Bopape said Mr. Malema, who is appealing his expulsion, should stay in the party. “He is the voice of the youth,” Mr. Bopape said. “No one else is speaking for us.”
Source: New York Times
Saturday, February 18, 2012
South Africans Suffer as Graft Saps Provinces
When she moved from a cramped room in a boardinghouse to her very own bungalow on a speck of land here last year, Jeanette Munyai became one of the millions of South Africans given a decent home by an ambitious government program inaugurated at the end of apartheid. House-proud for the first time in her life, she immediately planted corn, pumpkins and tomatoes on a patch of her yard. Only two things were missing: running water and electricity. “They told us water and light was coming, but we are still using the bush as a toilet,” she said. “We are waiting.”
Ms. Munyai and her neighbors are unlikely to get water or electricity any time soon. The provincial government is broke, and the dry pipes and powerless plugs have for her and many others come to symbolize the heavy toll graft and cronyism have taken in this impoverished northern province.
Corruption has long bedeviled South Africa, but the crisis here in Limpopo Province has pushed the common practice of doling out overstuffed government contracts to people with friends in high places to its logical conclusion: bankruptcy. Provincial officials overspent their budget by an estimated $250 million, much of it on questionable — or blatantly fraudulent — government payments and contracts with private businesses enjoying close ties to the politicians leading the province. “There is evidence emerging that some of these service providers are politically connected, and many of them may have gotten those tenders in dubious kinds of ways,” said Kenneth Brown, deputy director general in the Treasury Department.
Dan Sebabi, leader of Limpopo’s branch of Cosatu, the powerful coalition of trade unions that is allied with the governing African National Congress, put it more bluntly. “You have leaders who are politicians by day, businessmen by night,” he said. Graft and wasteful spending have sapped the government’s ability to tackle inequality. Only 3 of 39 government departments were pronounced clean in audits by South Africa’s auditor general last year. Only 7 of 237 cities passed muster the year before. “We thought that South Africa could be different from the rest of the countries that came before us on the African continent,” said Gilbert Kganyago, leader of Limpopo’s branch of the South African Communist Party. “But at the rate that things are happening, we have actually caught up to the African scenario quite more quickly than we might have thought.”
A recent report by the auditor general found that in the last fiscal year, government officials and their relatives won $15 million in contracts for work with the Defense Department, the Tax Service and the Department of Home Affairs, among others. And that does not come close to accounting for the many millions of dollars quietly awarded to friends and other associates, experts note.
Almost from the moment it was elected to govern in 1994 after decades of fighting to end apartheid, the A.N.C. has struggled with allegations of graft. Jacob Zuma, the current president, took office only after a bevy of corruption charges against him were dismissed amid accusations of prosecutorial misconduct. But corruption has become so entrenched that it is eating away at the nation’s soul, said Zwelinzima Vavi, secretary general of Cosatu, in a recent speech to announce the formation of an antigraft organization, Corruption Watch. “We are moving towards a society in which the morality of our revolutionary movement — selflessness, service to the people and caring for the poor and vulnerable — is being threatened,” Mr. Vavi said. “If we do nothing it will be swept away by a tidal wave of a culture of individualism, a ‘me first’ attitude and to hell with everyone else. Some argue that we are already a society where only the fittest survive and dog eats dog.”
Corruption is a particularly serious problem in provincial governments, which are responsible for delivering many of the services needed by the poor. Many powerful regional politicians use their offices to enrich their friends, forming a coterie of wealthy elites reminiscent of the tribal chieftains the apartheid government used to administer the tiny, nominally independent bantustans where blacks were forced to live.
Limpopo has the nation’s second-highest proportion of people living in poverty — 62 percent, according to the South African Institute of Race Relations. The average unemployment rate for the province is 40 percent, but it is much higher for blacks and young people. Signs of waste and fraud are everywhere. Pipes that were supposed to bring clean drinking water to parched, impoverished communities were laid improperly and burst, requiring the whole job to be done again, according to local officials. Tiny government houses like the one in which Ms. Munyai lives are crumbling only months after being built. Since she has no water, she uses her toilet as a storage closet and has to walk several blocks to a shared pump several times a day. Roads paved a year ago are already covered with potholes. “This road is not more than two years old,” said Geoffrey Tshibvumo, a local councilor from the Congress of the People, a party that broke away from the A.N.C., as he bounced along a rural road in the province one afternoon. “They spent millions on it, and it is already spoiled.”
The crisis here has been brewing for some time. Late last year, the province ran out of money and asked the central government to lend it about $130 million. But the central government balked at handing over such a large sum without first taking a close look at the province’s books. A quick survey of its accounts showed that the state treasury was in chaos. State officials had made $360 million in unauthorized payments, and millions of dollars’ worth of contracts had been awarded without competitive bidding, the central treasury said.
The Education Department had 2,400 more teachers on its payroll than it was budgeted for, and 200 “ghost” teachers, who drew salaries but did not actually exist. The department had overspent its budget by almost $40 million even before ordering textbooks and other supplies for the coming school year. In the Health Department, more than $50 million worth of goods had been improperly ordered, leaving almost nothing for salaries for government nurses and doctors. Public works contracts showed evidence that they had been manipulated, the Treasury Department said, to increase the cost of projects — and presumably the profits of the contractors. Consulting fees ate up a quarter of the infrastructure budget.
Big contracts tended to go to a small handful of companies, many of them run by close associates of the province’s top politicians, according to provincial government documents. Some officials had been warning that the province was headed for a crisis. One whistle-blower in the Health Department sent a memo to a senior official in February 2011 outlining major problems with a contract for medical supplies. The prices for bandages and dressings had been inflated, the whistle-blower said, and the department could not possibly use the quantities ordered.
In addition, officials ordered more than $30 million worth of items in the last days of the fiscal year, most of it “labels and forms that are not critical or lifesaving drugs,” according to the memo. Prices for other items were wildly inflated. The national attention to the crisis in Limpopo is in no small part a reflection of the politics of the province. It is the home of Julius Malema, the polarizing leader of the A.N.C.’s youth league, who was suspended from the party for five years for his incendiary remarks and harsh stance against the president, Mr. Zuma. Limpopo’s provincial leader, Cassel Mathale, is a close political ally of Mr. Malema.
But many other provinces face a lesser version of the same crisis, analysts say. “It is not unique to Limpopo — it is all over the country,” said Moeletsi Mbeki, a political analyst and businessman. “It is a general form of self-enrichment by the politically connected.”
Mr. Brown, the deputy director general at the treasury, said that politics played no part in the decision to intervene in Limpopo. The crisis threatened the country’s financial reputation. “If you are sitting in New York and you are an investor in South Africa and you see a provincial government that cannot pay its teachers and nurses,” he said, “what does that tell you about South Africa?”
Source: New York Times
Ms. Munyai and her neighbors are unlikely to get water or electricity any time soon. The provincial government is broke, and the dry pipes and powerless plugs have for her and many others come to symbolize the heavy toll graft and cronyism have taken in this impoverished northern province.
Corruption has long bedeviled South Africa, but the crisis here in Limpopo Province has pushed the common practice of doling out overstuffed government contracts to people with friends in high places to its logical conclusion: bankruptcy. Provincial officials overspent their budget by an estimated $250 million, much of it on questionable — or blatantly fraudulent — government payments and contracts with private businesses enjoying close ties to the politicians leading the province. “There is evidence emerging that some of these service providers are politically connected, and many of them may have gotten those tenders in dubious kinds of ways,” said Kenneth Brown, deputy director general in the Treasury Department.
Dan Sebabi, leader of Limpopo’s branch of Cosatu, the powerful coalition of trade unions that is allied with the governing African National Congress, put it more bluntly. “You have leaders who are politicians by day, businessmen by night,” he said. Graft and wasteful spending have sapped the government’s ability to tackle inequality. Only 3 of 39 government departments were pronounced clean in audits by South Africa’s auditor general last year. Only 7 of 237 cities passed muster the year before. “We thought that South Africa could be different from the rest of the countries that came before us on the African continent,” said Gilbert Kganyago, leader of Limpopo’s branch of the South African Communist Party. “But at the rate that things are happening, we have actually caught up to the African scenario quite more quickly than we might have thought.”
A recent report by the auditor general found that in the last fiscal year, government officials and their relatives won $15 million in contracts for work with the Defense Department, the Tax Service and the Department of Home Affairs, among others. And that does not come close to accounting for the many millions of dollars quietly awarded to friends and other associates, experts note.
Almost from the moment it was elected to govern in 1994 after decades of fighting to end apartheid, the A.N.C. has struggled with allegations of graft. Jacob Zuma, the current president, took office only after a bevy of corruption charges against him were dismissed amid accusations of prosecutorial misconduct. But corruption has become so entrenched that it is eating away at the nation’s soul, said Zwelinzima Vavi, secretary general of Cosatu, in a recent speech to announce the formation of an antigraft organization, Corruption Watch. “We are moving towards a society in which the morality of our revolutionary movement — selflessness, service to the people and caring for the poor and vulnerable — is being threatened,” Mr. Vavi said. “If we do nothing it will be swept away by a tidal wave of a culture of individualism, a ‘me first’ attitude and to hell with everyone else. Some argue that we are already a society where only the fittest survive and dog eats dog.”
Corruption is a particularly serious problem in provincial governments, which are responsible for delivering many of the services needed by the poor. Many powerful regional politicians use their offices to enrich their friends, forming a coterie of wealthy elites reminiscent of the tribal chieftains the apartheid government used to administer the tiny, nominally independent bantustans where blacks were forced to live.
Limpopo has the nation’s second-highest proportion of people living in poverty — 62 percent, according to the South African Institute of Race Relations. The average unemployment rate for the province is 40 percent, but it is much higher for blacks and young people. Signs of waste and fraud are everywhere. Pipes that were supposed to bring clean drinking water to parched, impoverished communities were laid improperly and burst, requiring the whole job to be done again, according to local officials. Tiny government houses like the one in which Ms. Munyai lives are crumbling only months after being built. Since she has no water, she uses her toilet as a storage closet and has to walk several blocks to a shared pump several times a day. Roads paved a year ago are already covered with potholes. “This road is not more than two years old,” said Geoffrey Tshibvumo, a local councilor from the Congress of the People, a party that broke away from the A.N.C., as he bounced along a rural road in the province one afternoon. “They spent millions on it, and it is already spoiled.”
The crisis here has been brewing for some time. Late last year, the province ran out of money and asked the central government to lend it about $130 million. But the central government balked at handing over such a large sum without first taking a close look at the province’s books. A quick survey of its accounts showed that the state treasury was in chaos. State officials had made $360 million in unauthorized payments, and millions of dollars’ worth of contracts had been awarded without competitive bidding, the central treasury said.
The Education Department had 2,400 more teachers on its payroll than it was budgeted for, and 200 “ghost” teachers, who drew salaries but did not actually exist. The department had overspent its budget by almost $40 million even before ordering textbooks and other supplies for the coming school year. In the Health Department, more than $50 million worth of goods had been improperly ordered, leaving almost nothing for salaries for government nurses and doctors. Public works contracts showed evidence that they had been manipulated, the Treasury Department said, to increase the cost of projects — and presumably the profits of the contractors. Consulting fees ate up a quarter of the infrastructure budget.
Big contracts tended to go to a small handful of companies, many of them run by close associates of the province’s top politicians, according to provincial government documents. Some officials had been warning that the province was headed for a crisis. One whistle-blower in the Health Department sent a memo to a senior official in February 2011 outlining major problems with a contract for medical supplies. The prices for bandages and dressings had been inflated, the whistle-blower said, and the department could not possibly use the quantities ordered.
In addition, officials ordered more than $30 million worth of items in the last days of the fiscal year, most of it “labels and forms that are not critical or lifesaving drugs,” according to the memo. Prices for other items were wildly inflated. The national attention to the crisis in Limpopo is in no small part a reflection of the politics of the province. It is the home of Julius Malema, the polarizing leader of the A.N.C.’s youth league, who was suspended from the party for five years for his incendiary remarks and harsh stance against the president, Mr. Zuma. Limpopo’s provincial leader, Cassel Mathale, is a close political ally of Mr. Malema.
But many other provinces face a lesser version of the same crisis, analysts say. “It is not unique to Limpopo — it is all over the country,” said Moeletsi Mbeki, a political analyst and businessman. “It is a general form of self-enrichment by the politically connected.”
Mr. Brown, the deputy director general at the treasury, said that politics played no part in the decision to intervene in Limpopo. The crisis threatened the country’s financial reputation. “If you are sitting in New York and you are an investor in South Africa and you see a provincial government that cannot pay its teachers and nurses,” he said, “what does that tell you about South Africa?”
Source: New York Times
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
www.corruptionwatch.org.za launched in South Africa
Independent civil society institute Corruption Watch embarked on its outreach to the public today, launching a website and SMS hotline to receive reports of corruption and posting an online pledge for people to sign rejecting corruption.
The website will be a repository of stories from the South African public; a secure portal for evidence-based whistle blowing activity and a resource for information about corrupt activities in South Africa.
“By gathering, interpreting and acting on information from the public, the media and other sources,” Director David Lewis said, “Corruption Watch will expose the corrupt and the misuse in particular of public money. We have formed this institution to enable citizens to report and confront public and private sector individuals abusing their power and position.”
The data collected by the organisation will be used to reveal ‘hotspots’ of corrupt activity around the country at municipal, provincial and national level. Where corruption is rife, Corruption Watch will seek partnerships with powerful organs of civil society to effect change.
“We want to help move the national conversation about corruption from resignation to action,” said Lewis.
Funded principally by donations from charitable foundations, Corruption Watch was initiated by Cosatu’s office bearers, who were receiving an increasing number of complaints about corruption from its membership and the general public. It is a non-profit organisation and the board is comprised of the following individuals: Bobby Godsell, Adila Hassim, David Lewis, Mary Metcalfe, Mavuso Msimang, Archbishop Ndungane, Kate O’Regan, Zwelinzima Vavi, and is chaired by Vuyiseka Dubula.
The website will be the main interface between the public and Corruption Watch, though it can be reached via SMS, twitter and facebook. Through social media, people can share their stories about all manner of corruption, including but not exclusive to bribery, kickbacks and graft; influence peddling and patronage; corruption in the work place where they’ve seen or been victims of favouritism, nepotism, ghost workers and illegitimate absenteeism. People may be able to report instances of bid-rigging, price-fixing, arbitrage and profiteering, cartels and collusion and tender and procurement irregularities.
The personal details of anyone reporting an incident will be kept confidential, but the information collected will be aggregated, enabling Corruption Watch to analyse the data, spot patterns and draw a ‘heat map’ of when and where corruption is occurring.
“Information from crowd-sourcing offers a clear understanding of what is happening on the ground,” said Lewis. “While we won’t be in a position to investigate each and every report, the combined knowledge of people coming to our site will provide us with a powerful tool to build alliances with other institutions and NGOs. Strengthening the scale and voice of civil society will help South Africans defeat corruption.”
From some of the aggregated information – and occasionally a personal story that is representative of an endemic form of corruption – Corruption Watch will initiate research, commission reports and compile sufficient documentation to refer matters to the appropriate investigative or prosecutorial authority, or engage in policy-based advocacy work.
“Our first campaign,” said Lewis, “is asking people to sign a pledge online, or via SMS, refusing to participate in corruption and, if they are civil servants, committing to treating public resources with respect.”
The public can tell Corruption Watch about their experiences and sign the pledge on the website (www.corruptionwatch.org.za). To SMS, send the text “BRIBE” to report corruption or, to sign the pledge, type “PLEDGE” plus your first and last names to the number 45142 (the SMS costs R1). People can also talk about it on facebook (CorruptionWatch) and twitter (@corruption_sa), or follow #corruptionwatch.
“We are all degraded and affronted by corruption. It threatens our institutions, service delivery, public trust and indeed our democracy. Together we can reject the abuse of public money, which so disproportionately affects the poor,” concluded Corruption Watch Chairperson Vuyiseka Dubula.
Source: Corruption Watch
The website will be a repository of stories from the South African public; a secure portal for evidence-based whistle blowing activity and a resource for information about corrupt activities in South Africa.
“By gathering, interpreting and acting on information from the public, the media and other sources,” Director David Lewis said, “Corruption Watch will expose the corrupt and the misuse in particular of public money. We have formed this institution to enable citizens to report and confront public and private sector individuals abusing their power and position.”
The data collected by the organisation will be used to reveal ‘hotspots’ of corrupt activity around the country at municipal, provincial and national level. Where corruption is rife, Corruption Watch will seek partnerships with powerful organs of civil society to effect change.
“We want to help move the national conversation about corruption from resignation to action,” said Lewis.
Funded principally by donations from charitable foundations, Corruption Watch was initiated by Cosatu’s office bearers, who were receiving an increasing number of complaints about corruption from its membership and the general public. It is a non-profit organisation and the board is comprised of the following individuals: Bobby Godsell, Adila Hassim, David Lewis, Mary Metcalfe, Mavuso Msimang, Archbishop Ndungane, Kate O’Regan, Zwelinzima Vavi, and is chaired by Vuyiseka Dubula.
The website will be the main interface between the public and Corruption Watch, though it can be reached via SMS, twitter and facebook. Through social media, people can share their stories about all manner of corruption, including but not exclusive to bribery, kickbacks and graft; influence peddling and patronage; corruption in the work place where they’ve seen or been victims of favouritism, nepotism, ghost workers and illegitimate absenteeism. People may be able to report instances of bid-rigging, price-fixing, arbitrage and profiteering, cartels and collusion and tender and procurement irregularities.
The personal details of anyone reporting an incident will be kept confidential, but the information collected will be aggregated, enabling Corruption Watch to analyse the data, spot patterns and draw a ‘heat map’ of when and where corruption is occurring.
“Information from crowd-sourcing offers a clear understanding of what is happening on the ground,” said Lewis. “While we won’t be in a position to investigate each and every report, the combined knowledge of people coming to our site will provide us with a powerful tool to build alliances with other institutions and NGOs. Strengthening the scale and voice of civil society will help South Africans defeat corruption.”
From some of the aggregated information – and occasionally a personal story that is representative of an endemic form of corruption – Corruption Watch will initiate research, commission reports and compile sufficient documentation to refer matters to the appropriate investigative or prosecutorial authority, or engage in policy-based advocacy work.
“Our first campaign,” said Lewis, “is asking people to sign a pledge online, or via SMS, refusing to participate in corruption and, if they are civil servants, committing to treating public resources with respect.”
The public can tell Corruption Watch about their experiences and sign the pledge on the website (www.corruptionwatch.org.za). To SMS, send the text “BRIBE” to report corruption or, to sign the pledge, type “PLEDGE” plus your first and last names to the number 45142 (the SMS costs R1). People can also talk about it on facebook (CorruptionWatch) and twitter (@corruption_sa), or follow #corruptionwatch.
“We are all degraded and affronted by corruption. It threatens our institutions, service delivery, public trust and indeed our democracy. Together we can reject the abuse of public money, which so disproportionately affects the poor,” concluded Corruption Watch Chairperson Vuyiseka Dubula.
Source: Corruption Watch
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Corruption SA - the almost irresistible tsunami
The common solution to the perennial conundrum of what happens when the “Unstoppable Force” hits the “Immovable Object” is that either the force must stop or the object must move. In the fight against Africa’s greatest evil, the big question is whether corruption is unstoppable and/or immovable. “Political hyenas” has to be SA's political phrase of the year. In grown-up politics, at any rate. “Bloody agent” may appeal to the younger types, but the fact is this year has really been dominated by one overarching issue: Corruption.
2010 is the year in which the fight against corruption gained a public and popular political hero, Zwelinzima Vavi. It’s also the year when those who may be corrupt, those who may be hyenas, started to make their own presence felt, started to use their considerable power. This is an issue that will probably dominate 2011, and will definitely become a big issue in the ANC’s big year in 2012.
It’s very easy to claim that this is all Jacob Zuma’s fault. He’s the President, and hell, it’s not like he’s clean himself. The full story of how exactly he escaped having to answer questions under oath about those “loans” from Schabir Shaik is in itself possibly a corruption story of the highest order. But the person (Mokotedi Mpshe) who made the final decision is now a judge himself, so we’ll probably never know the full full extent of it.
And having a head of state with that perception around him doesn’t make the fight against corruption any easier. Just look at the SABC. The man who ran it, Dali Mpofu does many a wrong thing, gets sacked and walks away with millions. Other people, in the lower echelons of the corporation are only human if they think well, I’ll just start my own company and start to bill the corporation as well. The same dynamic could easily affect our traffic cops and councillors. Hell, if he’s doing it, why not? And it doesn’t matter if Zuma actually did anything wrong or not; it’s the perception that matters.
But as easy as that would be, the fact is that corruption is a much bigger issue than just one man. Corruption, the hyenas, now have a momentum behind them that sometimes looks well nigh unstoppable. And that momentum started long before Zuma, it started almost before Mbeki. The fact is that capitalists, the filthy lucre-ites, got their dirty fingers into the ANC, and those vulnerable to such an approach, probably even before Nelson Mandela took his oath of office.
The real question now though is: Has this momentum become irresistible? Or is it a one tsunami that can be tamed? Most societies have a type of momentum to them that moves in ebbs and flows. Prohibition and alcohol abstinence took hold of the US for a while, and then let go its grip. Some countries in Eastern Europe flirted, very painfully, with hard-core socialism as a sort of foreplay to communism, before changing their minds. Here, capitalism still wins and as a result most of the rich are still white. The trends that gather momentum quickly and strongly are those that appeal to our baser instincts. Most people want to get rich, thus the “Clever Boys of the Alliance” (the SACP) have such a difficult fight on their hands.
Corruption, of course, appeals to a very base instinct, which makes it very difficult to fight. In most places, what seems to work is a division of power. That gift the US gave to the world of checks and balances is the one silver bullet we know of that fights corruption with some success. Not total success mind you, but close enough for us. And therein lies the problem. Our checks and balances are weaker than they should be: the ANC’s deployment committee has seen to that. The balance between the minister who sets policy and the government mandarin who is supposed to implement it is gone.
Nowhere is this more stark than in this year’s appointment by Zuma of Menzi Simelane to the post of national director of public prosecutors. By his own admission (during the Ginwala Commission) he is not someone who believes the National Prosecuting Authority should be entirely independent of the justice ministry. (The judge who ruled he couldn’t find the appointment was unlawful, only pointed out there was no evidence Zuma even thought about appointing someone else.)
The fact is that those who claim to be keen on fighting corruption, in which, based on their public statements, we have to include the likes of Zuma, Gwede Mantashe and the rest of the ANC’s top six, are not giving us any proof of real commitment. Time and time again these people have defended the ANC’s deployment policy, and time and time again they have claimed to be fighting corruption. The two are mutually exclusive.
The fact is, to quote Kofi Annan, “Anything is possible, if only we have the political will”. The ANC, at the moment, doesn’t appear to us, to have that level of political will. And without the ANC behind you, you are not going to change the momentum of this country very easily. In fact, it may be impossible.
Source: Daily Maverick
2010 is the year in which the fight against corruption gained a public and popular political hero, Zwelinzima Vavi. It’s also the year when those who may be corrupt, those who may be hyenas, started to make their own presence felt, started to use their considerable power. This is an issue that will probably dominate 2011, and will definitely become a big issue in the ANC’s big year in 2012.
It’s very easy to claim that this is all Jacob Zuma’s fault. He’s the President, and hell, it’s not like he’s clean himself. The full story of how exactly he escaped having to answer questions under oath about those “loans” from Schabir Shaik is in itself possibly a corruption story of the highest order. But the person (Mokotedi Mpshe) who made the final decision is now a judge himself, so we’ll probably never know the full full extent of it.
And having a head of state with that perception around him doesn’t make the fight against corruption any easier. Just look at the SABC. The man who ran it, Dali Mpofu does many a wrong thing, gets sacked and walks away with millions. Other people, in the lower echelons of the corporation are only human if they think well, I’ll just start my own company and start to bill the corporation as well. The same dynamic could easily affect our traffic cops and councillors. Hell, if he’s doing it, why not? And it doesn’t matter if Zuma actually did anything wrong or not; it’s the perception that matters.
But as easy as that would be, the fact is that corruption is a much bigger issue than just one man. Corruption, the hyenas, now have a momentum behind them that sometimes looks well nigh unstoppable. And that momentum started long before Zuma, it started almost before Mbeki. The fact is that capitalists, the filthy lucre-ites, got their dirty fingers into the ANC, and those vulnerable to such an approach, probably even before Nelson Mandela took his oath of office.
The real question now though is: Has this momentum become irresistible? Or is it a one tsunami that can be tamed? Most societies have a type of momentum to them that moves in ebbs and flows. Prohibition and alcohol abstinence took hold of the US for a while, and then let go its grip. Some countries in Eastern Europe flirted, very painfully, with hard-core socialism as a sort of foreplay to communism, before changing their minds. Here, capitalism still wins and as a result most of the rich are still white. The trends that gather momentum quickly and strongly are those that appeal to our baser instincts. Most people want to get rich, thus the “Clever Boys of the Alliance” (the SACP) have such a difficult fight on their hands.
Corruption, of course, appeals to a very base instinct, which makes it very difficult to fight. In most places, what seems to work is a division of power. That gift the US gave to the world of checks and balances is the one silver bullet we know of that fights corruption with some success. Not total success mind you, but close enough for us. And therein lies the problem. Our checks and balances are weaker than they should be: the ANC’s deployment committee has seen to that. The balance between the minister who sets policy and the government mandarin who is supposed to implement it is gone.
Nowhere is this more stark than in this year’s appointment by Zuma of Menzi Simelane to the post of national director of public prosecutors. By his own admission (during the Ginwala Commission) he is not someone who believes the National Prosecuting Authority should be entirely independent of the justice ministry. (The judge who ruled he couldn’t find the appointment was unlawful, only pointed out there was no evidence Zuma even thought about appointing someone else.)
The fact is that those who claim to be keen on fighting corruption, in which, based on their public statements, we have to include the likes of Zuma, Gwede Mantashe and the rest of the ANC’s top six, are not giving us any proof of real commitment. Time and time again these people have defended the ANC’s deployment policy, and time and time again they have claimed to be fighting corruption. The two are mutually exclusive.
The fact is, to quote Kofi Annan, “Anything is possible, if only we have the political will”. The ANC, at the moment, doesn’t appear to us, to have that level of political will. And without the ANC behind you, you are not going to change the momentum of this country very easily. In fact, it may be impossible.
Source: Daily Maverick
Monday, September 13, 2010
Zuma's son says he will give away shares
BUSINESSMAN and son of President Jacob Zuma, Duduzane, has defended his role in black economic empowerment deals and promised to give away 70 percent of his stake in ArcelorMittal SA deal. "I am very pleased to announce that I have decided to forgo 70 percent of my proposed allocation and spread it among other South Africans who are needy and disadvantaged like I once was," Zuma said. He said his close business allies, the Gupta family, had also agreed to give 70 percent of their own allocation in the Amsa deal.
Zuma said he would set up a broad-based share scheme for disadvantaged South Africans to distribute shares in the controversial Amsa deal. He said his Mabengela Empowerment Trust was worth more than R1 billion. A share would go to widows and widowers, orphans and dependants of police who died in the line of duty since April 27 1994. Another would go to a bursary fund for under-privileged students studying at universities. "The inaugural award will go to the University of Johannesburg. We will particularly target universities in historically disadvantaged areas or universities with a large proportion of students from historically disadvantaged communities," Zuma said. A portion would go towards support of women in rural communities and pay for the education of orphans in all provinces.
Zuma has been chastised by Cosatu after he was announced as one of the beneficiaries in Amsa's black economic empowerment deal worth more than R9billion. Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said: "The open way in which prominent 'business figures', linked to top political leaders, deepen perceptions that there is blatantly abuse of power to concoct illegitimate business deals worth billions of rands."
Zuma defended his involvement in the deal, saying that it had nothing to do with the fact that his father was president of the country. "I would like to point out that I was in business long before my father was president," he said. "I am a businessman in my own right." He said he had "never done business with government" and that hard work and dedication had helped him establish himself in business.
Source: The Sowetan
Zuma said he would set up a broad-based share scheme for disadvantaged South Africans to distribute shares in the controversial Amsa deal. He said his Mabengela Empowerment Trust was worth more than R1 billion. A share would go to widows and widowers, orphans and dependants of police who died in the line of duty since April 27 1994. Another would go to a bursary fund for under-privileged students studying at universities. "The inaugural award will go to the University of Johannesburg. We will particularly target universities in historically disadvantaged areas or universities with a large proportion of students from historically disadvantaged communities," Zuma said. A portion would go towards support of women in rural communities and pay for the education of orphans in all provinces.
Zuma has been chastised by Cosatu after he was announced as one of the beneficiaries in Amsa's black economic empowerment deal worth more than R9billion. Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said: "The open way in which prominent 'business figures', linked to top political leaders, deepen perceptions that there is blatantly abuse of power to concoct illegitimate business deals worth billions of rands."
Zuma defended his involvement in the deal, saying that it had nothing to do with the fact that his father was president of the country. "I would like to point out that I was in business long before my father was president," he said. "I am a businessman in my own right." He said he had "never done business with government" and that hard work and dedication had helped him establish himself in business.
Source: The Sowetan
Friday, September 3, 2010
'Coalition of the wounded' turns on Zuma
A new "coalition of the wounded" has emerged in the ANC ahead of the party's national general council, with many of President Jacob Zuma's once most ardent backers now joining forces to stop his serving a second term. It took slightly more than two years for Zuma to alienate some of his staunchest supporters, including the ANC Youth League. Now his future lies in the hands of the left -- Cosatu and the South African Communist Party -- at a time when alliance relations are at a nadir.
According to several ANC sources linked to the Youth League, the SACP, Cosatu and the government, many party leaders have their eye on higher office or want to punish Zuma for not rewarding them sufficiently for their support in the run-up to the ANC's 2007 Polokwane conference. They are said to include Siphiwe Nyanda, the communications minister, Fikile Mbalula, the deputy police minister, and Julius Malema, the league's president.
Lobbyists wanting Zuma to retain his position at the ANC's next conference in 2012 claim Nyanda aspires to become the party's treasurer general, although this week Nyanda denied this, saying he has "no such intentions". "I can't choose for myself what I want to be. I went to Polokwane as an ordinary branch member of the ANC and was elected to the national executive committee. The ANC decides, I don't have a say," he said.
ANC sources said that Nyanda was also resentful that he had not landed the defence portfolio, which went to Lindiwe Sisulu. Some Zuma supporters are suspicious of former intelligence chief Billy Masetlha, saying he hankers after higher office -- something he denies. Zuma lobbyists say that Masetlha, who was not given a Cabinet position, wants to be in the ANC's "top six", a platform from which, he believes, he can counter detractors effectively. He denied this, saying he had previously been approached to be a minister, but had declined. He said he had no ambition to have a higher office in the ANC. "What is the fun in being in the top six?" he asked. But he did take a dig at his fellow national executive committee members, who needed to "pull up their socks". "Sixty percent of the people in the NEC are doing other things, like this lobbying and pushing their own agendas. They are not doing their jobs." He said his criticisms would make him "even more unpopular than I already am, but I've had enough".
A second group of leaders, calling themselves the "new frontier", is a subgroup of the broad front that questions Zuma's leadership. They are talking to one another and their constituencies about what they see as the erosion of traditional ANC values. Key new frontier members are Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe, Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale, Zwelinzima Vavi, Cosatu's general secretary, and Sisulu.
An ANC insider close to them said that they were discussing a return to such values as a rejection of corruption and a clear division between party and state. "The new frontier is where the action is," said the source. "New alliances are coalesced around the future of the ANC and of government and these leaders are having a conversation about what is to be done."
A government official with strong ANC links said that the realignment taking place did not bode well for the national general council, which kicks off on September 20. An ANC-aligned government official said: "Anyone who thinks the NGC can be managed must think again. There is an organic unhappiness that will come out there. Each sector [including the youth and women's leagues] is going to the NGC with a position and that will cause huge debate. There is less talk about tickets and more about where the ANC is going." Although Sisulu has kept a low political profile of late, insiders say that she has been thrown into the mix because of a need to ensure gender representation. She is seen as the most senior women leader in the ANC after national chairperson Baleka Mbete. Mbete, who is currently active in business, is said to have lost interest in furthering her career in the ANC.
Also prominent in the coalition is Malema, who was once quoted as saying he was prepared to "kill for Zuma". As recently as January this year, the league was the only major ANC formation to defend the president. But in April Zuma publicly rebuked him for acting in ways "alien to the ANC" after Malema had defied the ANC NEC by singing the song Shoot the Boer and calling the opposition Movement for Democratic Change in Zimbabwe a "Mickey Mouse party". He was later dragged into a humiliating disciplinary process, which forced him to make a public admission of guilt and apologise to Zuma. Malema has joined forces with Fikile Mbalula, a former youth league chief who expected more than a "mere" deputy minister position in return for his efforts in ensuring a Zuma victory at Polokwane, youth league sources say. To show their disdain for his "low-ranking position", Mbalula's supporters are urging Zuma to relieve him of his executive duties and return him to Luthuli House.
Even former Mbeki supporters, previously in the political wilderness, have been roped in to boost the numbers in both the Zuma and anti-Zuma camps. One such a figure, who is being lobbied to support ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe, said Mbeki's former supporters fear a takeover by the Youth League and their circle. "[We are more frightened of] an ANC Youth League takeover, which will destroy the organisation. The Youth League's supporters have no intention of rebuilding or uniting the party -- they just want to use positions to accumulate wealth."
Former ANC leaders in the Western Cape say they are being lobbied to support either of the two camps and are being promised plum government jobs. According to sources, Vavi is being lobbied to take over the position of Blade Nzimande, South African Communist Party boss, giving him a better chance to secure a senior ANC position.
The SACP is holding its elective conference in July 2012, six months before the ANC national conference in Mangaung. Zuma can still rely on Cosatu's support, but in return the federation will expect him to strengthen alliance relations. Masetlha is confident that there is no threat to Zuma, despite the Youth League's withdrawal of support and the opposition of other leaders. "There is no threat to JZ. The ANC cannot be run by children and opportunists. We know where to get them and how to get them, so watch this space," he said.
Cosatu's rank and file still support Zuma, despite the government's response to the two-week public service strike. "The president is still relevant. Our hope is not gone. But his strength comes from the strength of the alliance," said Zet Luzipho, Cosatu's secretary in KwaZulu-Natal.
Source: Mail & Guardian
According to several ANC sources linked to the Youth League, the SACP, Cosatu and the government, many party leaders have their eye on higher office or want to punish Zuma for not rewarding them sufficiently for their support in the run-up to the ANC's 2007 Polokwane conference. They are said to include Siphiwe Nyanda, the communications minister, Fikile Mbalula, the deputy police minister, and Julius Malema, the league's president.
Lobbyists wanting Zuma to retain his position at the ANC's next conference in 2012 claim Nyanda aspires to become the party's treasurer general, although this week Nyanda denied this, saying he has "no such intentions". "I can't choose for myself what I want to be. I went to Polokwane as an ordinary branch member of the ANC and was elected to the national executive committee. The ANC decides, I don't have a say," he said.
ANC sources said that Nyanda was also resentful that he had not landed the defence portfolio, which went to Lindiwe Sisulu. Some Zuma supporters are suspicious of former intelligence chief Billy Masetlha, saying he hankers after higher office -- something he denies. Zuma lobbyists say that Masetlha, who was not given a Cabinet position, wants to be in the ANC's "top six", a platform from which, he believes, he can counter detractors effectively. He denied this, saying he had previously been approached to be a minister, but had declined. He said he had no ambition to have a higher office in the ANC. "What is the fun in being in the top six?" he asked. But he did take a dig at his fellow national executive committee members, who needed to "pull up their socks". "Sixty percent of the people in the NEC are doing other things, like this lobbying and pushing their own agendas. They are not doing their jobs." He said his criticisms would make him "even more unpopular than I already am, but I've had enough".
A second group of leaders, calling themselves the "new frontier", is a subgroup of the broad front that questions Zuma's leadership. They are talking to one another and their constituencies about what they see as the erosion of traditional ANC values. Key new frontier members are Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe, Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale, Zwelinzima Vavi, Cosatu's general secretary, and Sisulu.
An ANC insider close to them said that they were discussing a return to such values as a rejection of corruption and a clear division between party and state. "The new frontier is where the action is," said the source. "New alliances are coalesced around the future of the ANC and of government and these leaders are having a conversation about what is to be done."
A government official with strong ANC links said that the realignment taking place did not bode well for the national general council, which kicks off on September 20. An ANC-aligned government official said: "Anyone who thinks the NGC can be managed must think again. There is an organic unhappiness that will come out there. Each sector [including the youth and women's leagues] is going to the NGC with a position and that will cause huge debate. There is less talk about tickets and more about where the ANC is going." Although Sisulu has kept a low political profile of late, insiders say that she has been thrown into the mix because of a need to ensure gender representation. She is seen as the most senior women leader in the ANC after national chairperson Baleka Mbete. Mbete, who is currently active in business, is said to have lost interest in furthering her career in the ANC.
Also prominent in the coalition is Malema, who was once quoted as saying he was prepared to "kill for Zuma". As recently as January this year, the league was the only major ANC formation to defend the president. But in April Zuma publicly rebuked him for acting in ways "alien to the ANC" after Malema had defied the ANC NEC by singing the song Shoot the Boer and calling the opposition Movement for Democratic Change in Zimbabwe a "Mickey Mouse party". He was later dragged into a humiliating disciplinary process, which forced him to make a public admission of guilt and apologise to Zuma. Malema has joined forces with Fikile Mbalula, a former youth league chief who expected more than a "mere" deputy minister position in return for his efforts in ensuring a Zuma victory at Polokwane, youth league sources say. To show their disdain for his "low-ranking position", Mbalula's supporters are urging Zuma to relieve him of his executive duties and return him to Luthuli House.
Even former Mbeki supporters, previously in the political wilderness, have been roped in to boost the numbers in both the Zuma and anti-Zuma camps. One such a figure, who is being lobbied to support ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe, said Mbeki's former supporters fear a takeover by the Youth League and their circle. "[We are more frightened of] an ANC Youth League takeover, which will destroy the organisation. The Youth League's supporters have no intention of rebuilding or uniting the party -- they just want to use positions to accumulate wealth."
Former ANC leaders in the Western Cape say they are being lobbied to support either of the two camps and are being promised plum government jobs. According to sources, Vavi is being lobbied to take over the position of Blade Nzimande, South African Communist Party boss, giving him a better chance to secure a senior ANC position.
The SACP is holding its elective conference in July 2012, six months before the ANC national conference in Mangaung. Zuma can still rely on Cosatu's support, but in return the federation will expect him to strengthen alliance relations. Masetlha is confident that there is no threat to Zuma, despite the Youth League's withdrawal of support and the opposition of other leaders. "There is no threat to JZ. The ANC cannot be run by children and opportunists. We know where to get them and how to get them, so watch this space," he said.
Cosatu's rank and file still support Zuma, despite the government's response to the two-week public service strike. "The president is still relevant. Our hope is not gone. But his strength comes from the strength of the alliance," said Zet Luzipho, Cosatu's secretary in KwaZulu-Natal.
Source: Mail & Guardian
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Unions reject govt's revised wage offer
The public-sector strike is set to continue after South Africa's main labour federation late on Wednesday rejected a revised government wage offer. "We got a report from unions and the overwhelming majority of provincial structures have rejected the government's offer, the strike continues," Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said.
However, the Independent Labour Caucus (ILC), one of the labour umbrellas representing about 1,3-million workers, was still divided on the offer. Chris Klopper, chairperson of the ILC, said his organisation was "still in the process of collecting feedback from its members on the government's wage offer". "We're not in a position at this stage to pronounce our stance. At this stage it’s a 50-50 ... we will know by Friday what the stance is," said Klopper.
Unions tabled the improved offer to their members after President Jacob Zuma ordered his ministers to negotiate a solution to the 15-day stoppage that has paralysed schools and hospitals. "Unions will meet tomorrow morning [Thursday] to further discuss and assess where we are," said Vavi.
The government revised its offer to a 7,5% wage increase and an R800 housing allowance, up from its previous offer of a 7% raise and R700 for housing. Unions are demanding an 8,6% increase and a R1 000 housing allowance. Cosatu's stance did not come as a surprise as earlier on Wednesday one of the biggest striking unions said it had refused the latest proposal. "We have rejected the offer," said Sizwe Pamla, spokesperson for the National Education Health and Allied Workers, Union (Nehawu), which has about 244 000 members.
Zuma's order to break the deadlock came amid mounting pressure over the walk-out, which is now in its third week, as wage disputes spread to the private auto sector and forced an indefinite shutdown at a Volkswagen plant. But the revised public-sector offer saw sympathy strikes planned for Thursday, including at the country's mines, called off to give civil servants time to vote on the new deal. "The NUM would like to emphasise that this is a suspension and as such should a resolution not be found, the NUM reserves its right to strike," said the 320 000-strong National Union of Mineworkers.
Cosatu, which lists about two million members, had called for the solidarity strikes, which it suspended on Wednesday. However, it also warned that future stoppages were possible. "The federation would, however, stress that this is only a suspension and our affiliated unions remain ready to take solidarity strike action in support of the public-service workers if a resolution to the dispute is not reached."
Source: Mail & Guardian
However, the Independent Labour Caucus (ILC), one of the labour umbrellas representing about 1,3-million workers, was still divided on the offer. Chris Klopper, chairperson of the ILC, said his organisation was "still in the process of collecting feedback from its members on the government's wage offer". "We're not in a position at this stage to pronounce our stance. At this stage it’s a 50-50 ... we will know by Friday what the stance is," said Klopper.
Unions tabled the improved offer to their members after President Jacob Zuma ordered his ministers to negotiate a solution to the 15-day stoppage that has paralysed schools and hospitals. "Unions will meet tomorrow morning [Thursday] to further discuss and assess where we are," said Vavi.
The government revised its offer to a 7,5% wage increase and an R800 housing allowance, up from its previous offer of a 7% raise and R700 for housing. Unions are demanding an 8,6% increase and a R1 000 housing allowance. Cosatu's stance did not come as a surprise as earlier on Wednesday one of the biggest striking unions said it had refused the latest proposal. "We have rejected the offer," said Sizwe Pamla, spokesperson for the National Education Health and Allied Workers, Union (Nehawu), which has about 244 000 members.
Zuma's order to break the deadlock came amid mounting pressure over the walk-out, which is now in its third week, as wage disputes spread to the private auto sector and forced an indefinite shutdown at a Volkswagen plant. But the revised public-sector offer saw sympathy strikes planned for Thursday, including at the country's mines, called off to give civil servants time to vote on the new deal. "The NUM would like to emphasise that this is a suspension and as such should a resolution not be found, the NUM reserves its right to strike," said the 320 000-strong National Union of Mineworkers.
Cosatu, which lists about two million members, had called for the solidarity strikes, which it suspended on Wednesday. However, it also warned that future stoppages were possible. "The federation would, however, stress that this is only a suspension and our affiliated unions remain ready to take solidarity strike action in support of the public-service workers if a resolution to the dispute is not reached."
Source: Mail & Guardian
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
'ANC is the party of the black middle class'
Mbeki, who wrote Architects of Poverty: Why Africa's Capitalism Needs Changing, was speaking as a guest lecturer on Thursday at the University of the Free State (UFS) in Bloemfontein, to third-year and honours economics students. "You just have to look at the types of houses that the ANC government builds for ordinary South Africans," he said. "If you had a party that was a pro-working-class party, it would not have built these so-called RDP houses that are being built by the ANC government. The unions have all along been under the illusion that the ANC is the government of the working class, and [Zwelinzima] Vavi and them are now beginning to realise that this is not the case." His comments came on the same day Vavi delivered his strongest condemnation yet of Zuma's government at a press conference in Johannesburg. The general secretary of Cosatu said that the alliance was "dysfunctional" as the strikes continued, slamming the corruption of the state.
Mbeki said the striking public-sector workers faced a special dilemma. "They think the ANC is their ally but at the same time they feel they are not getting any benefits out of this alliance. Therefore you are beginning to get a very acrimonious environment emerging between the public-sector unions and the government." On Monday, the government went back to the negotiating table with unions after President Jacob Zuma demanded they do so. They have put an offer on the table of a 7,5% increase and an R800 housing allowance, just shy of union demands of 8,6% and R1000. Workers were on Tuesday voting on whether to accept the offer.
Meanwhile, Mbeki also weighed in on the Protection of Information Bill and the proposed media tribunal, which have brought the media and the government on to a collision course, saying the ANC government was trying to muzzle the media because it wanted to safeguard corruption within government. "The question of freedom of information is very closely linked to the rise in corruption in the government," he said. "What the politicians are doing is that they are trying to hide that corruption. The media in this country have been playing a very critical role in exposing cases of corruption. That is why Vavi now has bodyguards." He said he recently met the outspoken Vavi, who was surrounded by four bodyguards. The Cosatu leader said he was getting death threats because he was opposing corruption in government, according to Mbeki.
Moving on to economic policies, he called South Africa's the "worst in the world" because they benefited people who were already rich and prevented the emergence of entrepreneurs. "In fact, one of the serious downsides of black economic empowerment [BEE] is that it takes people who should normally be entrepreneurs and who should be creating new companies and new jobs out of that space and just makes them wealthy. BEE has been a disaster because it created this massive economic inequality; it created this class of idle rich who have tons of money but do nothing."
Mbeki has been vocal about the failures of BEE in the past, in contrast to his brother, who championed those policies. His lauded book, published in 2009, argued that Africa's faults lay primarily with its rulers and political elites, who keep their fellow citizens poor while enriching themselves. In his lecture on Thursday, he said under-investment in the economy was having dire consequences in terms of unemployment and poverty. According to Mbeki this, coupled with the growth of Black Nationalism, was actually driving down the ability of the economy to absorb labour. "What really lies at the bottom of our economic problems in South Africa is that we have too much of a one-party dominance of our political system. We need more competition in our political system and until we realise the policies of the ANC are not going to change," he said.
Mbeki worked as a journalist in the past, winning the prestigious Nieman Fellowship and working at the BBC. After returning to South Africa from exile in 1990, he was appointed head of communication for Cosatu and media consultant to the ANC. However, by 2006 he was on a controversial list of commentators blacklisted by the SABC for what was seen as their anti-ANC views. In addition to being a private business entrepreneur and director of several companies, he is the deputy chairperson of the South African Institute of International Affairs, an independent think-tank based at the University of the Witwatersrand.
Source: Mail & Guardian
Friday, August 27, 2010
Cosatu threatens to break link with its old ally, ANC
COSATU yesterday threatened to sever its long-standing alliance with the ANC and widen the State workers’ strike next week to key industries.
Thousands of striking State workers held marches in major cities nationwide calling on the government to meet their wage demands. About 1.3 million unionised employees have walked out in the standoff, shutting schools and cutting off medical treatment at hospitals. “The alliance is again dysfunctional,” Cosatu secretary-general Zwelinzima Vavi said. “The centre cannot hold.” The comments were some of the strongest signals to date that organised labour, which helped President Jacob Zuma ascend to the Presidency, may be ready to cut, or change, a relationship with the ANC that was forged in their struggle to end apartheid.
The State workers’ strike has had no major impact on rand and bond trading but market players said worries would mount if it extended into September and other labour groups joined in. Jasson Urbach, an economist with the Free Market Foundation, estimated the work stoppage was costing the economy R1084 billion a day.
Police fired rubber bullets when protests turned violent in Kimberley, while rallies slowed traffic to a crawl in major cities. Cosatu said it had filed seven-day strike notices yester day so that all its two million members could join the State workers in a strike they said would also target the mining and manufacturing sectors, a step which could grind the country to a halt.
On top of the wage dispute, the leader of the ANC’s Youth League, Julius Malema, fired what amounted to a warning shot at Zuma on Wednesday, questioning his leadership and implying the ruling party’s youth wing would not support Zuma for a re- election bid.
Cosatu also wants the government to reverse a R9 billion deal involving mining giant ArcelorMittal that transfers 26% of its local shares to employees and black investors including a consortium led by Zuma’s son, Duduzane. “We are heading rapidly in the direction of a full blown predator State, in which a powerful, corrupt and demagogic elite of political hyenas increasingly controls the State,” Vavi said .
Source: Daily Dispatch Online
Thousands of striking State workers held marches in major cities nationwide calling on the government to meet their wage demands. About 1.3 million unionised employees have walked out in the standoff, shutting schools and cutting off medical treatment at hospitals. “The alliance is again dysfunctional,” Cosatu secretary-general Zwelinzima Vavi said. “The centre cannot hold.” The comments were some of the strongest signals to date that organised labour, which helped President Jacob Zuma ascend to the Presidency, may be ready to cut, or change, a relationship with the ANC that was forged in their struggle to end apartheid.
The State workers’ strike has had no major impact on rand and bond trading but market players said worries would mount if it extended into September and other labour groups joined in. Jasson Urbach, an economist with the Free Market Foundation, estimated the work stoppage was costing the economy R1084 billion a day.
Police fired rubber bullets when protests turned violent in Kimberley, while rallies slowed traffic to a crawl in major cities. Cosatu said it had filed seven-day strike notices yester day so that all its two million members could join the State workers in a strike they said would also target the mining and manufacturing sectors, a step which could grind the country to a halt.
On top of the wage dispute, the leader of the ANC’s Youth League, Julius Malema, fired what amounted to a warning shot at Zuma on Wednesday, questioning his leadership and implying the ruling party’s youth wing would not support Zuma for a re- election bid.
Cosatu also wants the government to reverse a R9 billion deal involving mining giant ArcelorMittal that transfers 26% of its local shares to employees and black investors including a consortium led by Zuma’s son, Duduzane. “We are heading rapidly in the direction of a full blown predator State, in which a powerful, corrupt and demagogic elite of political hyenas increasingly controls the State,” Vavi said .
Source: Daily Dispatch Online
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Strikers turn on Zuma
In a scathing attack on President Jacob Zuma over the public sector strike, unions have warned he could suffer the same fate as his recalled predecessor as he is also regularly out of the country when it is in "turmoil". They said Zuma should have postponed his trip to China with South African business leaders to intervene in the strike.
A top Zuma ally, African National Congress Youth League chief Julius Malema, was slammed as a "sewer rat" for criticising Cosatu over the strike. "Some people say 'phantsi ANC' (away with the ANC), but the problem is not the ANC. The problem is leaders we elect. We had Thabo Mbeki. Now President Zuma is in China when he should be here. "We're telling him he must beware," National Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu) provincial chairperson James Kruger told a rally on Tuesday in the Good Hope Centre attended by 2 500 public servants, most teachers.
Strikers at the rally applauded loudly when South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) provincial chairperson Bongani Mconyana warned that Zuma might, like former president Thabo Mbeki, not complete his term as president if he refused to change his attitude to the strike. "You can't leave a country when it is in turmoil. Thabo Mbeki did the same thing in 2007 and he did not complete his term in 2009. "He was arrogant and used quiet diplomacy. This one (Zuma) is our own and he says a lot of things that are not correct," he said.
This came as Cosatu piled pressure on the government, calling on all its affiliate unions to launch a secondary strike next week. The federation threatened to bring the economy to its knees and make government meet the demands of striking public servants. Cosatu called on Tuesday on its 21 affiliates to down tools next Thursday to support the public sector. "The whole of the economy will be shut down," Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi told a media briefing on Tuesday. Vavi said every Cosatu union would submit notices to its employers of the secondary strike. "Protected or protracted until the government as an employer accedes to the workers' demands. "Our members and their communities are the ones on the receiving end (of the strike). It is workers' kids who have not been to school, it is the workers and their families who rely on public hospitals. "We declare our total and full support of the public sector strike. We are demanding government make a new offer," Vavi said.
Cosatu also called on public servants to intensify their strike. "We need a total shutdown of the public sector until the government accedes to the legitimate demands of the working class." For the past 16 years, Vavi said, the government had refused to sign the minimum service agreement which would see a skeleton staff during strikes. Cosatu also slammed the government's so-called revised offer. On Monday, government spokesperson Themba Maseko said its wage offer was "technically" 8.5 percent as it included a 1.5 percent pay progression.
But on Tuesday, Cosatu hit back, saying it was outright lies and misinformation. "The government has added the pay progression on to the seven-percent salary increase offer to claim this 8.5 percent increase," said Vavi.
Meanwhile, two people were arrested at the Steve Biko Academic Hospital during a picket by public servants. Police used a water cannon to drive protesters from the hospital vicinity. One of those arrested was apparently a student who was not taking part in the protest. The workers continued chanting, voicing their frustrations about the government's pay offer.
At Kalafong Hospital scores of non-striking medical workers - who had to be protected by heavily armed soldiers - were confronted by striking public service counterparts in a tense stand-off. Hurling verbal abuse, strikers were repeatedly driven back by police and soldiers outside the hospital when non-striking medical staff left work for home on Tuesday. The hospital raised the strikers' anger for using soldiers to defend and man the facility.
Meanwhile, the South African National Defence Union (Sandu) expressed solidarity with strikers, and slammed Defence Minister Lindiwe Sisulu for deploying troops to hospitals and for saying she would deal with strikers the way striking soldiers had been dealt with. As dozens of visibly scared nurses and other medical staff gathered outside the hospital under the protection of soldiers and police waiting for taxis, protesters screamed at them. "You are useless. You are filthy and we will kill you."
Atteridgeville/Saulsville Taxi Owners Association spokesperson Kala Mafagane said it was the last time they would pick up non-strikers from the hospital. "It is too dangerous for us. There is a grave risk that our vehicles will be damaged. Who will pay for the repairs?" A nurse who asked not to be named said she would not return to work. "I am very scared. It is too dangerous. These people threaten to kill us," she said.
Source: IoL
A top Zuma ally, African National Congress Youth League chief Julius Malema, was slammed as a "sewer rat" for criticising Cosatu over the strike. "Some people say 'phantsi ANC' (away with the ANC), but the problem is not the ANC. The problem is leaders we elect. We had Thabo Mbeki. Now President Zuma is in China when he should be here. "We're telling him he must beware," National Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu) provincial chairperson James Kruger told a rally on Tuesday in the Good Hope Centre attended by 2 500 public servants, most teachers.
Strikers at the rally applauded loudly when South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) provincial chairperson Bongani Mconyana warned that Zuma might, like former president Thabo Mbeki, not complete his term as president if he refused to change his attitude to the strike. "You can't leave a country when it is in turmoil. Thabo Mbeki did the same thing in 2007 and he did not complete his term in 2009. "He was arrogant and used quiet diplomacy. This one (Zuma) is our own and he says a lot of things that are not correct," he said.
This came as Cosatu piled pressure on the government, calling on all its affiliate unions to launch a secondary strike next week. The federation threatened to bring the economy to its knees and make government meet the demands of striking public servants. Cosatu called on Tuesday on its 21 affiliates to down tools next Thursday to support the public sector. "The whole of the economy will be shut down," Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi told a media briefing on Tuesday. Vavi said every Cosatu union would submit notices to its employers of the secondary strike. "Protected or protracted until the government as an employer accedes to the workers' demands. "Our members and their communities are the ones on the receiving end (of the strike). It is workers' kids who have not been to school, it is the workers and their families who rely on public hospitals. "We declare our total and full support of the public sector strike. We are demanding government make a new offer," Vavi said.
Cosatu also called on public servants to intensify their strike. "We need a total shutdown of the public sector until the government accedes to the legitimate demands of the working class." For the past 16 years, Vavi said, the government had refused to sign the minimum service agreement which would see a skeleton staff during strikes. Cosatu also slammed the government's so-called revised offer. On Monday, government spokesperson Themba Maseko said its wage offer was "technically" 8.5 percent as it included a 1.5 percent pay progression.
But on Tuesday, Cosatu hit back, saying it was outright lies and misinformation. "The government has added the pay progression on to the seven-percent salary increase offer to claim this 8.5 percent increase," said Vavi.
Meanwhile, two people were arrested at the Steve Biko Academic Hospital during a picket by public servants. Police used a water cannon to drive protesters from the hospital vicinity. One of those arrested was apparently a student who was not taking part in the protest. The workers continued chanting, voicing their frustrations about the government's pay offer.
At Kalafong Hospital scores of non-striking medical workers - who had to be protected by heavily armed soldiers - were confronted by striking public service counterparts in a tense stand-off. Hurling verbal abuse, strikers were repeatedly driven back by police and soldiers outside the hospital when non-striking medical staff left work for home on Tuesday. The hospital raised the strikers' anger for using soldiers to defend and man the facility.
Meanwhile, the South African National Defence Union (Sandu) expressed solidarity with strikers, and slammed Defence Minister Lindiwe Sisulu for deploying troops to hospitals and for saying she would deal with strikers the way striking soldiers had been dealt with. As dozens of visibly scared nurses and other medical staff gathered outside the hospital under the protection of soldiers and police waiting for taxis, protesters screamed at them. "You are useless. You are filthy and we will kill you."
Atteridgeville/Saulsville Taxi Owners Association spokesperson Kala Mafagane said it was the last time they would pick up non-strikers from the hospital. "It is too dangerous for us. There is a grave risk that our vehicles will be damaged. Who will pay for the repairs?" A nurse who asked not to be named said she would not return to work. "I am very scared. It is too dangerous. These people threaten to kill us," she said.
Source: IoL
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Cosatu calls on workers to intensify strike action
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has threatened a total shutdown of the economy with a secondary strike if the government fails to settle its dispute with public-service workers by next Thursday.
"We call on all workers to intensify their action. Every Cosatu-affiliated union must on August 26 submit notice to their employers to embark on a secondary strike," general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said on Tuesday, referring to a seven-day notice period. "So by next Thursday if the current strike is not resolved, the entire economy of South Africa will be shut down."
Vavi also noted the government's comments on the 8,5% wage offer. Until Monday, the government said it was offering a 7% increase, but government spokesperson Themba Maseko told reporters this was in "real terms" actually 8,5% -- a mere tenth of a percent short of what unions wanted. This was because the increase offer was bolstered by a 1,5% pay progression.
Vavi said the government knew the arithmetic was misleading and an attempt to confuse the public. "No 8,5% wage offer was tabled. The government has been negotiating with the media rather than unions," he said. "This is pure misinformation aimed at confusing the public." The federation urged employers to refrain from confusing the public and stressed that workers were not deterred from their 8,6%.
Meanwhile, at least 53 premature babies were left unattended in some Gauteng hospitals during the public-sector strike on Monday, Premier Nomvula Mokonyane told the provincial legislature on Tuesday. "Yesterday[Monday] when I visited some of the hospitals that were severely affected by the strike I was told shocking stories of 53 premature babies who were left unattended when striking workers forced nursing staff to leave their posts," she said. "Some of the babies were literally locked in the wards with no one bothering to make alternative arrangements for their care."
Mokonyane said while she understood that workers had a right to strike, it was wrong of them to disrespect the rights of babies. "We all respect the right for workers to strike but they must also respect the Constitutional right for these babies to live." She said government was extremely grateful and thankful for the support it received. "The government is very heartened by the volunteers, including professionals who selflessly offered their services to care for those in need when the striking government workers abandoned their posts. "From the bottom of our hearts we say thank you for what you are doing to help us through this difficult period. We also wish to thank the workers who risked their lives to report for duty and care for the public."
She also thanked private hospitals for accommodating babies. Mokonyane said it was "unfortunate" that some protesters resorted to intimidation and put the lives of others in "serious danger".
Source: Mail & Guardian
"We call on all workers to intensify their action. Every Cosatu-affiliated union must on August 26 submit notice to their employers to embark on a secondary strike," general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said on Tuesday, referring to a seven-day notice period. "So by next Thursday if the current strike is not resolved, the entire economy of South Africa will be shut down."
Vavi also noted the government's comments on the 8,5% wage offer. Until Monday, the government said it was offering a 7% increase, but government spokesperson Themba Maseko told reporters this was in "real terms" actually 8,5% -- a mere tenth of a percent short of what unions wanted. This was because the increase offer was bolstered by a 1,5% pay progression.
Vavi said the government knew the arithmetic was misleading and an attempt to confuse the public. "No 8,5% wage offer was tabled. The government has been negotiating with the media rather than unions," he said. "This is pure misinformation aimed at confusing the public." The federation urged employers to refrain from confusing the public and stressed that workers were not deterred from their 8,6%.
Meanwhile, at least 53 premature babies were left unattended in some Gauteng hospitals during the public-sector strike on Monday, Premier Nomvula Mokonyane told the provincial legislature on Tuesday. "Yesterday[Monday] when I visited some of the hospitals that were severely affected by the strike I was told shocking stories of 53 premature babies who were left unattended when striking workers forced nursing staff to leave their posts," she said. "Some of the babies were literally locked in the wards with no one bothering to make alternative arrangements for their care."
Mokonyane said while she understood that workers had a right to strike, it was wrong of them to disrespect the rights of babies. "We all respect the right for workers to strike but they must also respect the Constitutional right for these babies to live." She said government was extremely grateful and thankful for the support it received. "The government is very heartened by the volunteers, including professionals who selflessly offered their services to care for those in need when the striking government workers abandoned their posts. "From the bottom of our hearts we say thank you for what you are doing to help us through this difficult period. We also wish to thank the workers who risked their lives to report for duty and care for the public."
She also thanked private hospitals for accommodating babies. Mokonyane said it was "unfortunate" that some protesters resorted to intimidation and put the lives of others in "serious danger".
Source: Mail & Guardian
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Cosatu supports Media Tribunal
Cosatu supported the ANC's proposal to set up a Media Appeals Tribunal (MAT) to regulate the media, City Press newspaper reported today. The newspaper reported that the labour federation wanted a different approach to the tribunal to what the ANC suggested, though. It said there was a "censorship" risk attached to the tribunal as well as the proposed protection of information bill. It warned that the tribunal could become a "censorship" tool as editors could decide to hold back stories about ministers for fear of being "hauled before a MAT that is biased towards government's view".
In a paper for discussion at the federation's central executive meeting which starts tomorrow Cosatu apparently envisaged that the tribunal should include representatives of the print media, the state, and organised civil society, the newspaper said. The discussion paper apparently suggested that state representatives should recuse themselves when the tribunal deals with matters involving government officials or institutions.
At the Ruth First Memorial Lecture on Aug 17, Zwelinzima Vavi, secretary general of Cosatu, criticised the protection of information bill. "If Ruth First were alive, she would ask where all the democrats had gone to after reading about the proposed protection of information bill, which would make a mockery of her work as a journalist".
Source: Business Day
In a paper for discussion at the federation's central executive meeting which starts tomorrow Cosatu apparently envisaged that the tribunal should include representatives of the print media, the state, and organised civil society, the newspaper said. The discussion paper apparently suggested that state representatives should recuse themselves when the tribunal deals with matters involving government officials or institutions.
At the Ruth First Memorial Lecture on Aug 17, Zwelinzima Vavi, secretary general of Cosatu, criticised the protection of information bill. "If Ruth First were alive, she would ask where all the democrats had gone to after reading about the proposed protection of information bill, which would make a mockery of her work as a journalist".
Source: Business Day
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Vavi questions Protection of Information Bill
Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) secretary general Zwelinzima Vavi criticised the proposed Protection of Information Bill during the Ruth First memorial lecture at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) on Tuesday. If Ruth First were alive, she would read the proposed Bill and ask where all the democrats had gone, he said, adding that it made a mockery of her work as a journalist.
First was an investigative journalist between 1947 and 1982, and was at the heart of the liberation movement in Southern Africa, participating in key moments of the struggle against apartheid, including helping to draft the Freedom Charter. She would be shocked if she came back and saw the deterioration in the country's economy, education system and health system, and the vast disparity between social classes, said Vavi, asking: "Was it worth her struggle?"
In 1956, First was one of 156 people arrested for high treason and spent 177 days in solitary confinement. She died in 1982 when a parcel bomb, sent to her by apartheid agents, exploded in her office at a university in Maputo. Vavi ended his speech saying: "Let the 28th anniversary of Ruth First's death reignite our passion for economic justice, our hatred for inequality and our impatience with reformism. The working class will not wait forever."
Meanwhile, a University of Cape Town academic has offered to hand over a year of his salary to the chief state law adviser if the Protection of Information Bill passes scrutiny by the Constitutional Court. Constitutional law expert Professor Pierre de Vos proposed the wager during a Harold Wolpe Trust seminar at the university on Thursday evening. He said the court would find that the controversial Bill, which seeks to set new rules for classifying information as secret, was simply too broad. "Even if you can say that the purpose for the Bill is an important one, which I think is arguable, they will say there are far less restrictive and limiting manners to achieve the same purpose, and for that reason it is not reasonable and justifiable in an open, democratic society," De Vos said. "If the Bill is found in its present form to be constitutional, I will give one month or one year of my salary to the person who drafted this Bill, or maybe the chief state law adviser -- on the condition that he will give one month or one year of his salary to me if the Constitutional Court finds otherwise."
Source: Mail & Guardian
First was an investigative journalist between 1947 and 1982, and was at the heart of the liberation movement in Southern Africa, participating in key moments of the struggle against apartheid, including helping to draft the Freedom Charter. She would be shocked if she came back and saw the deterioration in the country's economy, education system and health system, and the vast disparity between social classes, said Vavi, asking: "Was it worth her struggle?"
In 1956, First was one of 156 people arrested for high treason and spent 177 days in solitary confinement. She died in 1982 when a parcel bomb, sent to her by apartheid agents, exploded in her office at a university in Maputo. Vavi ended his speech saying: "Let the 28th anniversary of Ruth First's death reignite our passion for economic justice, our hatred for inequality and our impatience with reformism. The working class will not wait forever."
Meanwhile, a University of Cape Town academic has offered to hand over a year of his salary to the chief state law adviser if the Protection of Information Bill passes scrutiny by the Constitutional Court. Constitutional law expert Professor Pierre de Vos proposed the wager during a Harold Wolpe Trust seminar at the university on Thursday evening. He said the court would find that the controversial Bill, which seeks to set new rules for classifying information as secret, was simply too broad. "Even if you can say that the purpose for the Bill is an important one, which I think is arguable, they will say there are far less restrictive and limiting manners to achieve the same purpose, and for that reason it is not reasonable and justifiable in an open, democratic society," De Vos said. "If the Bill is found in its present form to be constitutional, I will give one month or one year of my salary to the person who drafted this Bill, or maybe the chief state law adviser -- on the condition that he will give one month or one year of his salary to me if the Constitutional Court finds otherwise."
Source: Mail & Guardian
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
'Stop the politicians' feeding frenzy'
Cosatu leader Zwelinzima Vavi has warned that South Africa was slipping into becoming a "predatory state" where a new tier of leaders believed it was their turn to "feed". "There is an order in a predatory state - and I'm not saying that is what is happening - but in an ordinary predatory state there is an order in the feeding trough. The first family must feed first, and then the cabinet must come, and its family, and then the provincial leadership and the council. In the process we have battles of short-term interest," he said.
The Cosatu general secretary was speaking at a political school organised by the National Union of Metalworkers' of SA (Numsa) in Joburg last night. Fellow panellist, ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe, told the gathering the success of the ANC's struggles was not to be measured "on how many billionaires we have produced", but rather how the poverty experienced by the majority of people was addressed. The alliance leaders' comments come after multibillion-rand deals involving people directly linked to President Jacob Zuma, including his son, Duduzane, and his nephew, Khulubuse Zuma.
Mantashe asked whether having 20 black people among the top richest people in the country was really all that the "national democratic revolution" was about. The ANC's renewal campaign was about returning the party to its members. "It can't be dominated by a small inner circle that controls resources and gives access to wealth," he said.
Steel giant ArcelorMittal has come under fire after announcing a R9 billion deal to sell a 26 percent stake in its business, a transaction in which Duduzane Zuma as well as the Gupta family and other close associates of Zuma have scored millions of rands. Vavi said when it became a matter of politicians awaiting their turn to "feed", this was a "vulgarisation" of the alliance's struggle to liberate black African people. Economic empowerment and job creation were inextricably linked, he said. He criticised the government's "dilly-dallying" and "confusion" over developing a plan to curb the "job-loss bloodbath", that saw more than one million people lose their jobs in the past year. "Since April we are being told there is an economic growth path (policy document) and that it is coming. Up to now we have nothing in our hands, and we are going to discuss it for the first time in the (ANC's national general council, its mid-term policy review conference). Even that shows that there is a state of confusion up there," Vavi said. There was a growth path envisaged by cabinet and a separate one envisioned by the ANC, Vavi said. "As a result... you might be going in two different directions. It is a crisis."
Also present was SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande, who called for a review of the country's black economic empowerment policies. "Who has it worked for? And is it being corrupted in a big way?" he asked. Nzimande repeated his warnings against "tenderpreneurs" - people who manipulate state contracts to enrich themselves - and businesses that chased state tenders rather than creating opportunities in the private sector. "BEE is in a big crisis, so its roots (are) in picking on the state. When that goes on, we will turn South Africa into one big tender which will be sold to the highest bidder," he said. "You will bring in counter-revolution, because anything that stands in the way, will be dealt with quite severely."
Source: IOL
The Cosatu general secretary was speaking at a political school organised by the National Union of Metalworkers' of SA (Numsa) in Joburg last night. Fellow panellist, ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe, told the gathering the success of the ANC's struggles was not to be measured "on how many billionaires we have produced", but rather how the poverty experienced by the majority of people was addressed. The alliance leaders' comments come after multibillion-rand deals involving people directly linked to President Jacob Zuma, including his son, Duduzane, and his nephew, Khulubuse Zuma.
Mantashe asked whether having 20 black people among the top richest people in the country was really all that the "national democratic revolution" was about. The ANC's renewal campaign was about returning the party to its members. "It can't be dominated by a small inner circle that controls resources and gives access to wealth," he said.
Steel giant ArcelorMittal has come under fire after announcing a R9 billion deal to sell a 26 percent stake in its business, a transaction in which Duduzane Zuma as well as the Gupta family and other close associates of Zuma have scored millions of rands. Vavi said when it became a matter of politicians awaiting their turn to "feed", this was a "vulgarisation" of the alliance's struggle to liberate black African people. Economic empowerment and job creation were inextricably linked, he said. He criticised the government's "dilly-dallying" and "confusion" over developing a plan to curb the "job-loss bloodbath", that saw more than one million people lose their jobs in the past year. "Since April we are being told there is an economic growth path (policy document) and that it is coming. Up to now we have nothing in our hands, and we are going to discuss it for the first time in the (ANC's national general council, its mid-term policy review conference). Even that shows that there is a state of confusion up there," Vavi said. There was a growth path envisaged by cabinet and a separate one envisioned by the ANC, Vavi said. "As a result... you might be going in two different directions. It is a crisis."
Also present was SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande, who called for a review of the country's black economic empowerment policies. "Who has it worked for? And is it being corrupted in a big way?" he asked. Nzimande repeated his warnings against "tenderpreneurs" - people who manipulate state contracts to enrich themselves - and businesses that chased state tenders rather than creating opportunities in the private sector. "BEE is in a big crisis, so its roots (are) in picking on the state. When that goes on, we will turn South Africa into one big tender which will be sold to the highest bidder," he said. "You will bring in counter-revolution, because anything that stands in the way, will be dealt with quite severely."
Source: IOL
Monday, August 16, 2010
SA too great to be destroyed by fools
Not long ago this year, our nation was made to benefit from free political drama. The main actor in this was Cosatu’s Secretary General, Mr Zwelinzima Vavi. On behalf of his organisation, Vavi publicly read out a statement to register Cosatu’s concern that President Jacob Zuma remained silent about allegations of corruption levelled at some of his ministers.
Not unexpectedly, the ministers concerned were livid against Vavi, and indeed Zuma continued to remain silent. As we held our breaths to see how the drama would end, the ANC dramatically entered the theatre; it threatened to haul Vavi before its disciplinary committee.
Invariably, grotesquely theatrical moments in drama leave observers with dropped jaws. And so did the ANC choke our collective soul as a nation. In a kind of corruption-vs-society scenario, few would believe it to be true that the ANC could adopt a pro-corruption posture.
In its 2009 election manifesto, the ANC is unambiguous about its commitment to fight corruption. It states clearly “Corruption must be stamped out”. Therefore, when Cosatu calls for allegedly corrupt ministers to be investigated, readers of the manifesto would quite logically expect the ANC’s political morality to side with Vavi, rather than with the ministers.
In line with the spirit of the ANC manifesto, Cosatu was right in calling for President Zuma to investigate the ministers, since Zuma is the leader of Cabinet. His unwillingness to investigate – and the ANC’s threats to charge Vavi – leaves us with no option but seriously to doubt if Zuma is indeed committed to the manifesto of his party, which says “Corruption must be stamped out”.
Who will investigate who?
While our nation continued to wonder as to when President Zuma will finally institute an investigation against the ministers, the theatrical moment got even more unbelievable. Serious allegations now dominate our newspapers that, beyond the near-dearth Schabir Shaik, Zuma is currently being corrupted by a family from India, the Guptas. The Kumba/ArceloMittal saga – in which the Guptas and Zuma’s very own son were controversially involved – conjures up kleptocratic images, reminiscent of former Zairian leader Mobutu Sese Seko, who used his office to amass wealth. Suddenly, the Zuma surname seems to have become a winning business formulary.
When corruption allegations were levelled against ministers, Cosatu thought that Zuma was the suited higher authority to institute an investigation. Of course, this did not happen. Now that a cloud of corruption hangs over Zuma himself, a more difficult question demands answers: Who will investigate who? As for the ANC, we now know that the party sides with those who are alleged of corruption. Therefore, we can rest assured that the party will threaten anyone who would dare call for Zuma’s investigation. Fortunately, the author of this column is not a Cosatu Secretary General, he would certainly be charged for expressing an opinion.
All this happens against the backdrop of concerted efforts to prevent the media from reporting critically about acts of corruption on the part of those who hold public office. There is a party spokesperson with an interesting dental formula who is on record saying that journalists must be jailed. Coincidentally, this spokesperson comes from Mpumalanga, a province where politicians who speak against corruption literally get killed. If the mooted media tribunal does not succeed in silencing journalists, one can only hope that what happens to honest politicians in Mpumalanga will not happen to journalists, or to the author of this column. As we have all witnessed, the jailing of journalists has already begun.
Parallel to efforts to silence independent media, the public broadcaster – the SABC – is brazenly being remodelled as a media desk of the ANC. Recently on Siki Mgabadeli’s show, the new head of SABC news, Phil Molefe, comically announced what he calls his “new strategy”, which is a rehash of the ANC’s five priorities: jobs, crime, health, education and rural development.
While these priorities are indeed noble, it is rather strange when the head of news of the national broadcaster parrots them exactly as they appear in President Zuma’s speeches. Should we be surprised, therefore, that the SABC does not tell our nation that there are allegations that the president is corrupt? Imagine the SABC being the only source of information for us; would we have known how dirty our politicians are by watching news at seven?
Protect freedom of expression
We must not forget that the threat to clip the wings of the media is a matter far bigger than the clamour to protect silly journalists; it is a fundamental question of the freedom of expression. Unlike that of an animal, the human spirit has a natural urge for self-expression that politicians – however drunk with power – must never be allowed to trammel. In an article published in 1940, entitled Freedom and the Colleges, acclaimed philosopher Bertrand Russell makes this point with unequalled eloquence:
Let it be remembered that what is at stake...is the freedom of the individual human spirit to express its beliefs and hopes for mankind, whether they be shared by many or by few or none. New hopes, new beliefs, and new thoughts are at all times necessary to mankind, and it is not out of a dead uniformity that they can be expected to arise.
Imagine if all of us were like Phil Molefe, whose “new strategy” reproduces a dead uniformity with Zuma. Imagine if the thoughts we hold as individuals were to be expressed only if they are shared by many. Imagine if the freedom of the individual human spirit to express its beliefs and hope were to be threatened by the possibility of being punished harshly by a media tribunal, or suppressed by an apartheid-like Protection of Information Bill, introduced by latter-day looters of public funds who masquerade as leaders. This might please an unintelligent spokesperson from Mpumalanga, but it would certainly do very little to release the natural urge of the human spirit freely to express itself.
Corruption has brought our nation speedily to the brink of collapse. Like cancer, money has spread into every corner of South Africa’s body politic; a colossal social catastrophe is imminent. Many in society now see politics as a great stage of clowns; the integrity of our public institutions has been hollowed out. The most talented in our communities no longer feel the urge to serve the public, and the stage is left completely to the dumbest of fools. The danger of foolishness is that when it fails to persuade, it resorts hastily to force.
In times like this, all truly patriotic South Africans have a national duty to tell the truth about the unfolding drama before our own eyes. We must seize every space and opportunity to make it known that Zwelinzima Vavi is right in calling for an investigation against allegedly corrupt Ministers, or the President himself. If we do not do this, we will not have answers when our children ask: Where were you and what did you do when South Africa began to degenerate?
Source: News 24: Prince Mashele
Not unexpectedly, the ministers concerned were livid against Vavi, and indeed Zuma continued to remain silent. As we held our breaths to see how the drama would end, the ANC dramatically entered the theatre; it threatened to haul Vavi before its disciplinary committee.
Invariably, grotesquely theatrical moments in drama leave observers with dropped jaws. And so did the ANC choke our collective soul as a nation. In a kind of corruption-vs-society scenario, few would believe it to be true that the ANC could adopt a pro-corruption posture.
In its 2009 election manifesto, the ANC is unambiguous about its commitment to fight corruption. It states clearly “Corruption must be stamped out”. Therefore, when Cosatu calls for allegedly corrupt ministers to be investigated, readers of the manifesto would quite logically expect the ANC’s political morality to side with Vavi, rather than with the ministers.
In line with the spirit of the ANC manifesto, Cosatu was right in calling for President Zuma to investigate the ministers, since Zuma is the leader of Cabinet. His unwillingness to investigate – and the ANC’s threats to charge Vavi – leaves us with no option but seriously to doubt if Zuma is indeed committed to the manifesto of his party, which says “Corruption must be stamped out”.
Who will investigate who?
While our nation continued to wonder as to when President Zuma will finally institute an investigation against the ministers, the theatrical moment got even more unbelievable. Serious allegations now dominate our newspapers that, beyond the near-dearth Schabir Shaik, Zuma is currently being corrupted by a family from India, the Guptas. The Kumba/ArceloMittal saga – in which the Guptas and Zuma’s very own son were controversially involved – conjures up kleptocratic images, reminiscent of former Zairian leader Mobutu Sese Seko, who used his office to amass wealth. Suddenly, the Zuma surname seems to have become a winning business formulary.
When corruption allegations were levelled against ministers, Cosatu thought that Zuma was the suited higher authority to institute an investigation. Of course, this did not happen. Now that a cloud of corruption hangs over Zuma himself, a more difficult question demands answers: Who will investigate who? As for the ANC, we now know that the party sides with those who are alleged of corruption. Therefore, we can rest assured that the party will threaten anyone who would dare call for Zuma’s investigation. Fortunately, the author of this column is not a Cosatu Secretary General, he would certainly be charged for expressing an opinion.
All this happens against the backdrop of concerted efforts to prevent the media from reporting critically about acts of corruption on the part of those who hold public office. There is a party spokesperson with an interesting dental formula who is on record saying that journalists must be jailed. Coincidentally, this spokesperson comes from Mpumalanga, a province where politicians who speak against corruption literally get killed. If the mooted media tribunal does not succeed in silencing journalists, one can only hope that what happens to honest politicians in Mpumalanga will not happen to journalists, or to the author of this column. As we have all witnessed, the jailing of journalists has already begun.
Parallel to efforts to silence independent media, the public broadcaster – the SABC – is brazenly being remodelled as a media desk of the ANC. Recently on Siki Mgabadeli’s show, the new head of SABC news, Phil Molefe, comically announced what he calls his “new strategy”, which is a rehash of the ANC’s five priorities: jobs, crime, health, education and rural development.
While these priorities are indeed noble, it is rather strange when the head of news of the national broadcaster parrots them exactly as they appear in President Zuma’s speeches. Should we be surprised, therefore, that the SABC does not tell our nation that there are allegations that the president is corrupt? Imagine the SABC being the only source of information for us; would we have known how dirty our politicians are by watching news at seven?
Protect freedom of expression
We must not forget that the threat to clip the wings of the media is a matter far bigger than the clamour to protect silly journalists; it is a fundamental question of the freedom of expression. Unlike that of an animal, the human spirit has a natural urge for self-expression that politicians – however drunk with power – must never be allowed to trammel. In an article published in 1940, entitled Freedom and the Colleges, acclaimed philosopher Bertrand Russell makes this point with unequalled eloquence:
Let it be remembered that what is at stake...is the freedom of the individual human spirit to express its beliefs and hopes for mankind, whether they be shared by many or by few or none. New hopes, new beliefs, and new thoughts are at all times necessary to mankind, and it is not out of a dead uniformity that they can be expected to arise.
Imagine if all of us were like Phil Molefe, whose “new strategy” reproduces a dead uniformity with Zuma. Imagine if the thoughts we hold as individuals were to be expressed only if they are shared by many. Imagine if the freedom of the individual human spirit to express its beliefs and hope were to be threatened by the possibility of being punished harshly by a media tribunal, or suppressed by an apartheid-like Protection of Information Bill, introduced by latter-day looters of public funds who masquerade as leaders. This might please an unintelligent spokesperson from Mpumalanga, but it would certainly do very little to release the natural urge of the human spirit freely to express itself.
Corruption has brought our nation speedily to the brink of collapse. Like cancer, money has spread into every corner of South Africa’s body politic; a colossal social catastrophe is imminent. Many in society now see politics as a great stage of clowns; the integrity of our public institutions has been hollowed out. The most talented in our communities no longer feel the urge to serve the public, and the stage is left completely to the dumbest of fools. The danger of foolishness is that when it fails to persuade, it resorts hastily to force.
In times like this, all truly patriotic South Africans have a national duty to tell the truth about the unfolding drama before our own eyes. We must seize every space and opportunity to make it known that Zwelinzima Vavi is right in calling for an investigation against allegedly corrupt Ministers, or the President himself. If we do not do this, we will not have answers when our children ask: Where were you and what did you do when South Africa began to degenerate?
Source: News 24: Prince Mashele
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Why ANC hates a free press
There has been anger, consternation and disappointment over the ANC's two-pronged move to gag the media through a tribunal and a "protection of information" bill. I am surprised there has been so much surprise. These attempts to gag the press have nothing to do with the need for accuracy on the part of journalists, or protecting the dignity of South Africans, as claimed by ANC spokesmen.
They have, however, everything to do with the fact that the ANC right now has the weakest, greediest, most corrupt and compromised leadership since its birth 98 years ago. These so-called leaders want to shut down the medium that exposes their corruption, looting and hypocrisy.
In Polokwane, the ANC had a choice between a high road and a low road. It could, in thumping Thabo Mbeki's ambitions for a third term, have elected a leader more talented and better equipped to deliver on the promise of a free, united, non-racial and democratic South Africa. But, as happens in all kangaroo courts and mob slayings, in its rush to destroy Mbeki the ANC chose a man whose most marked traits were a talent for populist rhetoric and an inability to lead effectively. The ANC went for the lesser man, someone whose moral, intellectual and leadership skills remain a mystery to the nation.
The ANC did not stop there. Many in its current leadership know nothing but the world of the jackboot and violence: securocrats dominate the top echelons of the party. These are not leaders who enjoy the light shone by a free press. They prefer the dark; they like secrets and the cover-ups that allow corruption to flourish. A man who sleeps with his friends' children - one of them with mental problems and HIV-positive - cannot tolerate a free press that keeps putting the spotlight on the reprehensible behaviour of elected representatives. Such a man cannot understand or tolerate the watchdog role of the press, hence President Jacob Zuma's utterance this week: "The constitution talks about the privacy of people. At times, things that are private are not made private in the manner in which the reportings are done."
It is in this context that one must understand the virulence of the ANC and the president on this matter. Zuma would much rather have had the country be silent while he spoke with a forked tongue on moral regeneration (a programme of which he was a government leader), safe sex (an issue on which he was supposedly a government leader) and the dangers of having multiple concurrent relationships without using protection. This is not an elected leader who wants to be examined. The continued spotlight on him, every day and every hour, ensures that he will be found wanting. So we should not be surprised that he does not like the light. He likes things to remain "private" despite the fact that he occupies a public office.
The ANC leadership is aware that the rot has spread through the whole organisation. The party's discussion documents for its national general council meeting paint such a damning picture that it is amazing that an organisation so committed to secrecy should have made them public. But debate is one thing and action is another. This is an ANC that is ready to acknowledge in public that corruption is destroying it - but, as evidence mounts that all is not right with the business dealings of its senior leader and Communications Minister Siphiwe Nyanda (the Public Protector has called for an investigation of the man) - the party stands frozen.
This is the party that wants the press to stop pointing out these wrongs. Nyanda himself wants a media tribunal. Of course he would. The press is the only entity that has dared to expose his extravagant lifestyle at taxpayers' expense: buying hugely expensive cars, living it up on champagne and sleeping at five-star hotels. All this in a country where millions go hungry every day.
We should not be surprised. When Zwelinzima Vavi pointed out that Zuma was dragging his heels on Nyanda and allegations of corruption against another minister, the ANC decided to haul Vavi before a disciplinary hearing.
We should not be surprised. Blade Nzimande, a communist leader who disgustingly chose to buy himself a car worth more than a million rands, wants a media tribunal. This is understandable. His hypocrisy in buying himself the car while teachers, doctors and nurses earn a pittance is exposed by the press. He wants these things to be "private".
We should not be surprised. This is what the ANC is today: a rotten, greedy, corrupt and compromised leadership which wants to muzzle the media to hide its looting of the country.
Source: Times Live
They have, however, everything to do with the fact that the ANC right now has the weakest, greediest, most corrupt and compromised leadership since its birth 98 years ago. These so-called leaders want to shut down the medium that exposes their corruption, looting and hypocrisy.
In Polokwane, the ANC had a choice between a high road and a low road. It could, in thumping Thabo Mbeki's ambitions for a third term, have elected a leader more talented and better equipped to deliver on the promise of a free, united, non-racial and democratic South Africa. But, as happens in all kangaroo courts and mob slayings, in its rush to destroy Mbeki the ANC chose a man whose most marked traits were a talent for populist rhetoric and an inability to lead effectively. The ANC went for the lesser man, someone whose moral, intellectual and leadership skills remain a mystery to the nation.
The ANC did not stop there. Many in its current leadership know nothing but the world of the jackboot and violence: securocrats dominate the top echelons of the party. These are not leaders who enjoy the light shone by a free press. They prefer the dark; they like secrets and the cover-ups that allow corruption to flourish. A man who sleeps with his friends' children - one of them with mental problems and HIV-positive - cannot tolerate a free press that keeps putting the spotlight on the reprehensible behaviour of elected representatives. Such a man cannot understand or tolerate the watchdog role of the press, hence President Jacob Zuma's utterance this week: "The constitution talks about the privacy of people. At times, things that are private are not made private in the manner in which the reportings are done."
It is in this context that one must understand the virulence of the ANC and the president on this matter. Zuma would much rather have had the country be silent while he spoke with a forked tongue on moral regeneration (a programme of which he was a government leader), safe sex (an issue on which he was supposedly a government leader) and the dangers of having multiple concurrent relationships without using protection. This is not an elected leader who wants to be examined. The continued spotlight on him, every day and every hour, ensures that he will be found wanting. So we should not be surprised that he does not like the light. He likes things to remain "private" despite the fact that he occupies a public office.
The ANC leadership is aware that the rot has spread through the whole organisation. The party's discussion documents for its national general council meeting paint such a damning picture that it is amazing that an organisation so committed to secrecy should have made them public. But debate is one thing and action is another. This is an ANC that is ready to acknowledge in public that corruption is destroying it - but, as evidence mounts that all is not right with the business dealings of its senior leader and Communications Minister Siphiwe Nyanda (the Public Protector has called for an investigation of the man) - the party stands frozen.
This is the party that wants the press to stop pointing out these wrongs. Nyanda himself wants a media tribunal. Of course he would. The press is the only entity that has dared to expose his extravagant lifestyle at taxpayers' expense: buying hugely expensive cars, living it up on champagne and sleeping at five-star hotels. All this in a country where millions go hungry every day.
We should not be surprised. When Zwelinzima Vavi pointed out that Zuma was dragging his heels on Nyanda and allegations of corruption against another minister, the ANC decided to haul Vavi before a disciplinary hearing.
We should not be surprised. Blade Nzimande, a communist leader who disgustingly chose to buy himself a car worth more than a million rands, wants a media tribunal. This is understandable. His hypocrisy in buying himself the car while teachers, doctors and nurses earn a pittance is exposed by the press. He wants these things to be "private".
We should not be surprised. This is what the ANC is today: a rotten, greedy, corrupt and compromised leadership which wants to muzzle the media to hide its looting of the country.
Source: Times Live
Friday, August 6, 2010
Crime busters 'six feet under'
Cosatu chief Zwelinzima Vavi says corruption-busters have been assassinated but nothing has been done about it. He blasted two provincial governments for not acting against the killers of whistle-blowers and singled out Mpumalanga and the North West as dangerous provinces for people who had disclosed sensitive information. Members of the labour federation in Mpumalanga who asked questions on corruption "are now six feet under", he told a seminar on South Africa after the World Cup in Joburg on Thursday.
Vavi said one of Cosatu's leaders in North West, Moss Phakoe, was gunned down in his house in Rustenburg in March last year for fighting corruption at local government level. "Everybody from the premier (Maureen Modiselle) down are saying they know the killer and will arrest him, but no arrests have been made yet," he said.
North West government spokesperson Khotso Khumalo said Vavi had his facts wrong. "It is factually incorrect to say that the authorities and the premier know who the killers are, because that would imply that they're not acting." He said police were handling the matter.
Mpumalanga Premier David Mabuza's spokesman, Mabutho Sithole, said Vavi should come with proof of his allegations. Sithole said many whistle-blowers in Mpumalanga were alive and well, and testifying in corruption cases. "Any truth (to Vavi's allegations) must be determined by a court of law. He must assist us and give us proof of the people getting killed, not just say what he reads in the media," said Sithole.
There have been unverified reports in Mpumalanga of a Mozambican assassin who was allegedly hired to take out corruption-busters. Several politicians were killed and their deaths linked to their attempts to root out corruption. Vavi also said some union leaders were receiving death threats. He himself had received a death threat after he said President Jacob Zuma was not acting on allegations of corruption against ministers. Vavi said the ANC had admitted in its discussion documents for its national general council that corruption was a problem in the party, but he was threatened with disciplinary action when he raised the issue.
Vavi's predecessor-turned-businessman Jay Naidoo on Thursday also called for the fight against corruption and the exploitation of power to be stepped up. He urged NGOs and civil society organisations to fight against the "predatory elite". "If you want an enemy it is these 'democratic' elites who will use military language to create more space at the feeding trough. "(Trade unionists of old) used military terminology that was driven by a purpose, but now it is driven by self-interest, which is to get into government and to get their hands on power," he said.
Vavi noted that people who were appointed in government "moved closer to the seat of patronage". He also said the political climate in the alliance had not improved since the ANC's 2007 Polokwane conference.
Source: IoL
Vavi said one of Cosatu's leaders in North West, Moss Phakoe, was gunned down in his house in Rustenburg in March last year for fighting corruption at local government level. "Everybody from the premier (Maureen Modiselle) down are saying they know the killer and will arrest him, but no arrests have been made yet," he said.
North West government spokesperson Khotso Khumalo said Vavi had his facts wrong. "It is factually incorrect to say that the authorities and the premier know who the killers are, because that would imply that they're not acting." He said police were handling the matter.
Mpumalanga Premier David Mabuza's spokesman, Mabutho Sithole, said Vavi should come with proof of his allegations. Sithole said many whistle-blowers in Mpumalanga were alive and well, and testifying in corruption cases. "Any truth (to Vavi's allegations) must be determined by a court of law. He must assist us and give us proof of the people getting killed, not just say what he reads in the media," said Sithole.
There have been unverified reports in Mpumalanga of a Mozambican assassin who was allegedly hired to take out corruption-busters. Several politicians were killed and their deaths linked to their attempts to root out corruption. Vavi also said some union leaders were receiving death threats. He himself had received a death threat after he said President Jacob Zuma was not acting on allegations of corruption against ministers. Vavi said the ANC had admitted in its discussion documents for its national general council that corruption was a problem in the party, but he was threatened with disciplinary action when he raised the issue.
Vavi's predecessor-turned-businessman Jay Naidoo on Thursday also called for the fight against corruption and the exploitation of power to be stepped up. He urged NGOs and civil society organisations to fight against the "predatory elite". "If you want an enemy it is these 'democratic' elites who will use military language to create more space at the feeding trough. "(Trade unionists of old) used military terminology that was driven by a purpose, but now it is driven by self-interest, which is to get into government and to get their hands on power," he said.
Vavi noted that people who were appointed in government "moved closer to the seat of patronage". He also said the political climate in the alliance had not improved since the ANC's 2007 Polokwane conference.
Source: IoL
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Communications director 'released' from contract
The director general of the department of communications Mamodupi Mohlala has been "released" from her contract with immediate effect. "In the process of trying to find solutions to the challenges, it subsequently became apparent that trust between the minister [Siphiwe Nyanda] and the director general has broken down irretrievably," said spokesperson for the communications ministry Tiyani Rikhotso in a statement on Friday afternoon.Rikhotso said Mohlala was not released from her contract because of tender issues mentioned in the media. He said the department recently faced a number of challenges "relating to internal processes and procedure". Nyanda and the deputy minister Dina Pule met the director general to resolve the issues as they threatened the day-to-day operations of the department and negatively affected its image. In the interests of the department, the staff and the government, the minister concluded that it would be best to release Mohlala from her position as director general from July 23, he said.
Harold Wesso was appointed the acting director general to ensure that the work of the department was not negatively affected. The Mail and Guardian reported last week that Wesso was appointed as an acting director general for two days after a fall-out between Nyanda and Mohlala. Nyanda last week dismissed reports that he was suspending "Mohlala" -- following repeated disagreements over tenders she refused to sign -- as "false, spurious and malicious". Nyanda reportedly issued an instruction that all tenders for the department be cancelled until they had been "discussed and approved by the minister". It was understood that Mohlala warned Nyanda this week that removing the administration of tenders from her would violate the Public Finances Management Act. The saga with his director general is the latest landing Nyanda in the media spotlight.
In March freight group Transnet dismissed two senior managers for irregularly awarding a R55-million tender to a company allegedly linked to Nyanda.
In a separate case, the Democratic Alliance alleged that a company partly owned by Nyanda was unlawfully awarded a R67,8-million tender by the Gauteng roads and transport department.
Earlier this year Nyanda was accused of indulging in a "caviar and silk" lifestyle after allegedly spending thousands of rands on hotel stays at the luxurious Mount Nelson and Twelve Apostles hotels and buying two R1,2-million BMWs for his work.
Congress of South African Trade Union leader Zwelinzima Vavi singled out Nyanda when criticising the government's failure to act on allegations of corruption in Cabinet. Vavi had said reports that Nyanda had spent half-a-million rand on hotels in Cape Town should be probed, which landed him in hot water with its ally in the ruling alliance, the ANC.
Source: Mail & Guardian
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